Sacrifices Must Be Made
by CrazyAcorn
Summary: She wanted a proper life. He wanted to have fun. She wanted to be herself. He wanted to come back from the Underworld and be a prankster again... MARY-SUE AND DISCARDED. READ THE REMAKE INSTEAD. Oh, the Times We've Had
1. The Story of Jane

**CrazyA: **Hello there! So happy to have readers! Yay! I was inspired by KP-chan on deviantART to write this fic coz of her awesome comics. Plus, Jack O'Lantern kicks ass.

**Jack: **I'm proud to be picked out by the lovely Jess as an obsession. It's actually kinda fun! Watch... Jess, can you get me a soda?

**CrazyA: **Whatever you say you extreme hotness... *_runs to get soda*_

**The Joker: **You don't get _me_ sodas...

**Jack: **Guess she likes me better.... _*two Jacks get into fight*_

**CrazyA: **PLEASE READ AND REVIEW (NICELY)!!!

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**1. The Story of Jane**

_"C'mon, Grim!" Billy whined, pulling on the tails of Grim's flowing cape. "Just _one _story!" It was another night of work for Grim at the Old Folk's home. But he hadn't had a chance to go yet... Billy was holding on tightly to his cloak as Grim tried to drag his way to the front door. Two baby-sitters were meant to arrive, but they hadn't come yet. Mandy was getting prepared for them, sharpening her ninja-stars and trying to find a long piece of rope to tie them up with._

_"Billy! Get off me cloak!" Grim yelled, shaking his leg in an attempt to remove the leech. "The old folk are expecting me!"_

_"Grim, surely _one _story can't hurt..." Mandy said, concentrating all attention on a chest of torture devices. "And something new this time... we're getting bored of all the other ones."_

_Grim paused in his floating-tracks, thinking about the right decision. He smiled as he thought up a nasty plan for them, heading off to his trunk with Billy still being dragged along the carpet._

_"And _not _one of those fairy-tales again!" Mandy said, knowing what he was planning. Grim groaned and stopped at the basement stairs. Foiled again. Grim floated over to the couch and sat himself down, Billy still keeping a vice-like grip in his sticky hands. Mandy looked up at the clock: half-past eight. Still half an hour before the baby-sitters got here. Plenty of time for a story or two._

_Grim snapped his bony fingers together, a story coming to mind. He turned to Billy, his eye sockets seeming to glow with the usual look of wisdom and magic that he got whenever he started a story. "You children know about Jack O'Lantern, right?"_

_"You mean the guy who used to pull like heaps of pranks on people in his village but then the villagers got sick of him and decided to play their own prank so they sent a prank from Jack to the queen and she got all mad and stuff and killed him so then you came to get his soul and he tricked you into giving him the scythe and wouldn't let go unless you made him imort-o-whatever?!" Billy said in one long breath of air. Silence echoed, and Grim was about to fill it when he started talking again. "But you were ticked off and decided to cut off his head to teach him a lesson so then he kept a massive grudge against you coz he had a pumpkin for a head and couldn't go outside and buy pudding?!"_

_Grim and Mandy stared at Billy, wondering if he would keep quiet for once... it seemed to be that way. "Yes, dat's de one..." Grim said, clearing his throat. "Well, a couple of months after Halloween when he came back... and went away again into a nightmarish realm... someone had moved into his house..."_

_"So?" Mandy asked, coming over at long last. "Lots of people in Endsville move into haunted houses."_

_"Yes...well this one is different," Grim retorted as Mandy sat on the floor beside Billy. "For Jack's house had no one in it, at least not at the time _she _moved in."_

_"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Billy said, interrupting the feel of the story. "If this is a love story, then I'm leaving."_

_"Fine, leave," Mandy said in her usual tone of utter boredom. But Billy stayed, for each one of Grim's stories was a classic hit. "Grim, just hurry it up and don't get too mushy on us."_

_"Hey! It ain't me fault if I like to read a romance novel once in a few hundred years!"_

_"Whatever, just tell the stupid story."_

_"Very well..." Grim's eye sockets went darker and the lights flickered mysteriously as the story began... "About a year ago, end of Novemberr, a small family of three were looking for a new house. The father had been fired from his job in New York, and they had decided to take up residence in little old Endsville..."_

The bump of the car awoke her from her day-dream as it drove on. Her father was driving carefully, but you could tell from the pale colour of his knuckles that he was getting annoyed. And, of course, the blame rested on Jane.

It wasn't _her _fault that she was born with good (but picky) taste. In fact, she wasn't that picky at all. She just wanted a house that was simple, cosy, and different. Unlike all the other monsters that had come by that looked like something from a retro sci-fi movie. It was all too modern for her. And the cold temperature didn't help out at all. Whenever she stepped inside one of them, she felt so empty and blank. She wanted a house that was warm, like someone could actually live there.

"Well, there is this one house left on the list..." the realtor said, looking down at the file in her hand. "It's only recently been put on the market. Perfect for a small family."

"Why only recently?" Her mother, who was sitting in the backseat with her, suddenly asked.

"Well..." the realtor said, surprised by the voice as well. "The owner moved out a few months ago... it was sort of weird actually. Right on Halloween night, he mysteriously vanished..." She put on an immature 'ghost' voice, to frighten Jane as if she was a two-year-old. She merely rolled her eyes and leaned back in her seat, her iPod going up a little louder and looking outside to the white wondrous world.

It was hard to believe that two of the three other people in the car were Jane's only family. The lunatic behind the wheel, commonly known as Dad, was looking like he needed a shot of caffeine. He made all the conversations, rules and orders of the family. No one messed with Dad, especially after midnight when he came back from the pub.

The woman beside Jane in the white turtle-neck was meant to be referred to as Mom. But all Jane could see was a shivering coward who had practically no input on any decision made by Dad. Jane could see a bit of family resemblance: same dark eyes and ski-slope nose, but apart from that she felt like she had been adopted. Both Mom and Dad were blonde, but Jane had brown clumps of hair that she let grow wildly. A bird's nest compared to the highly-professional numbers that her parents possessed.

The realtor gave instructions to Dad, who nodded and followed carefully, paying close attention to the roads. Jane was the only person who noticed the incy, wincy tiny flaw with the house. Well, not really a flaw. Just something that not everyone could see even though it was pretty darn obvious.

_"Who puts a house, in the middle of a busy city, on a giant hill?" _she thought, not daring to point that out. She didn't really care much about it, for the rest of the house in her eyes was perfect.

Quiet, cosy-looking, completely perfect in every way.

They silently drove on, well except for the grumbling of Dad. But hell, he always did that. Jane paused her iPod, trying to take in as much of this as possible. It was beautiful in her eyes, better than any of the houses she'd ever seen before.

"The roof needs to be re-tiled," Dad grumbled, getting out of the car. "And the garden...just a load of weeds."

"But Jane likes to do a bit of gardening, don't you honey?" Mom said, looking over to Jane. No one was there. "Jane?!" She looked over to the front door and found Jane at last. Her daughter was trying to pull open the door, fiddling with the door-knob and banging on the wood.

"Um, Jane?" the realtor said, coming over beside her with a skeleton key. Jane moved aside slowly, blushing with embarrassment, but didn't say anything. The realtor unlocked the door and pushed it open, a cloud of dust immediately exploding in their faces.

The inside was completely bare, everything coated with at lest a centimetre of dust. Mom sneezed and wiped her nose on a tissue in her pocket, cursing her hay-fever. Dad was listening to the realtor, talking about how long the house had been standing, rats, cockroaches and other problems like that.

But Jane had headed straight for a set of winding stairs, quickly climbing them. She usually hated running, her limbs would jerk out awkwardly like a puppet with broken strings. But whenever there was a proper reason behind it, she was happy to run. She came to the top of the stairs and stared at the room. A giant window took up most of one wall, and she could see the whole town covered with the thin layer of white powder. It was sort of cool, actually. Like a gothic version of 'winter wonderland'.

And then she spotted it, all of the monsters that dotted the other side of the hill. The bright, round objects that hid underneath the layers of snow.

"Jane? How are things up there?" Mom asked, calling up the stairs. Her voice echoed against the walls, giving the already scary house an even scarier feel. Jane loved it. She wanted to spend the rest of her life in there (well, until she turned eighteen). She wanted to forever walk down the stairs, never to go outside again. She didn't give a damn about anything else, whether it be price or previous owner; she wanted the house so badly.

But she said nothing when she came back downstairs, merely shrugged with a ghost of a smile. That was actually a good sign: for the previous houses she had just wandered back into the car, listening to her iPod. The fact that she was standing inside the house for over ten minutes was enough her parents.

"Anything good up there?" Dad asked. Jane lied and shook her head; she wanted to keep her secret to herself. "Well, what's so good about this place then?" Jane just shrugged, she didn't know what to say. Dad wasn't worth talking to sometimes. She didn't care that his face went red and his knuckles went tighter and whiter. In fact, she sometimes loved it when that happened. Mom saw her husband's tensed-up expression and quickly defended her daughter.

"Maybe it's just too hard to describe for her..." she said, smiling in order to relax the four of them. "I think this house is a keeper, Steven..."

"And you haven't even seen the kitchen yet!" the realtor said, her white permanent smile growing bigger (if that was even physically possible.) Jane's parents followed her into a separate room, but Jane stayed behind. She waited until she was out of her parent's view before slowly and calmly walking back out of the house.

She made careful steps around the weeds, careful about where she went in case of hidden disasters such as rats and/or snakes. She didn't care about the new dirt on her black sneakers or any of the snowflakes that landed in her hair, she just wanted to see it to believe it. She looked down at the hill-side, her eyes glowing in amazement.

So she _hadn't _imagined it.

At least fifty-or-so pumpkins, round and ready to eat, with vines as thick as Jane's wrist. One was so huge that Jane could've used it as a coffee table. She smiled and tried picking up one of the smaller pumpkins, trying to see how heavy it was. Not that bad... a bit of a struggle, but she didn't have to go and fetch a wheelbarrow. Jane sat down on the closest one, brushing the snow off first, and looked out to the frozen horizon.

There was something about that day... about this house... she didn't know what it was... but Jane just _knew_... that something was going to happen.


	2. Soup's Up

**CrazyA:** I came back with the soda! Is orange okay, Jack? *_looks to find Joker and Jack in full-on fist-fight on the floor* _Guys? Oh screw it. _*drinks soda*_  
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**2. Soup's Up**

Tingle.

Tingle-tingle.

Tingly-tingle-tingly-tingly-tingle.

Jack sat up straight, his hat nearly falling off in the process. "What on _earth _was that?" he asked himself, looking around. He had found a quiet little spot at long last, just out of the view of the guards. A tiny place, between the rocks and flames, with a hole in one of the rocks so that he could see what was going on. It was sort of cosy, but he missed his old mattress. He missed home.

Tingle.

"What's going on?" he asked again as he got to his knees. In his crouched position, he looked over to the hole in the rock, peeping through and trying not to be spotted. Several of the guards were still pissed off about the little cream pie incident from a few days ago. But that might've been weeks ago... it was hard to tell what day was when down in this pit of fires and stench.

Several guards were standing around, playing cards, and slacking off as usual. There was one only a few feet away from Jack, searching for any signs of trouble. None of them could feel the 'tingle' like he did. So what was so special about him? Sure, immortal and all that... but so were all the other monsters down there. This 'tingly' thing wanted Jack, and him only (like most of the other fangirls he has.)

Jack slowly got to his feet and tried to keep as quiet as possible, he didn't want to risk another pummelling. Being immortal but still able to feel pain sucked. His head could be smashed in hundreds of times, and it would just grow back the next morning. But the pain still remained no matter how many times his head grew back. It was just torture.

He crept past the demons, keeping low and behind the rocks. This spine-crawling feeling that controlled him was getting stronger, pulling him over to an empty area surrounded by other rocks and pebbles. And there, in the middle of the deserted scene, was a tiny crack right in the bulls-eye of the floor. The tingling vanished, and Jack once again maintained control over his own mind.

"That was it?!" he yelled to the unknown. "A lousy crack in the ground?!" He groaned and started walking off. He hated it when all that built-up tension turned into nothing. It was a real party-pooper.

A bright glow appeared from the crack, and a faint hissing sound rose with it. Jack turned around, now curious and slightly happy to see that _finally _something was going to be fun around here. His smile grew, and his eyes glowed a little brighter than the one from the crack.

He got down on his knees, inspecting the crevice closely. The glow would have blinded anyone with real eyes, but for him it was easy. He scratched the area around it, removing more and more rubble and stone. The glow slowly beamed brighter before the whole crack expanded into a large circle. Jack jumped back in surprise, but still kept on smiling. "This _will_ be fun..."

*~*

Jane opened up the door and breathed in the smell of winter. Molten snow and dying leaves. One of the most natural scents in the world... Jane smiled and walked outside, the wind in her hair and the weeds attaching themselves to her striped knee-length-socks. Moving her way over to the monster pumpkin-patch, she removed a butcher's knife from her pocket and crouched down in front one of the smallest pumpkins she could find.

Usually Mom would complain about carrying a knife around in the untamed outside, and then complain even more about attempting to make pumpkin soup in a brand new kitchen. But she and Dad were out looking for jobs, leaving the fifteen-year-old alone in the house to 'do her own thing'.

Jane wasn't really sure how a person made pumpkin soup, she just remembered watching Mom cook some one day for her when she was sick. But she was sure that she would figure it out somehow. Jane smiled when the vine finally broke, and she picked up the filthy pumpkin in her hands. When she got back to the house, she locked the door behind her. Natural New York instinct, she guessed.

Jack looked on from above, watching this strange-looking teenager inside his house. He wasn't that surprised that the old place had gone up for sale, just surprised that people were already living inside it.

"Pumpkin fan too, eh?" he chuckled as he spotted her putting the pumpkin down on the kitchen bench. She couldn't hear him, so Jack assumed that she couldn't see him either. She was fairly cute, he guessed. But he couldn't really tell from where he was. He needed a spot in the action. He tried sticking a finger into the image, but it just tapped against it as if it were a television screen. Shame, it would've been fun to finally get out of this hell and pull a couple-of-dozen pranks on her.

Jane already had pots and pans and all the other ingredients set up, all she needed was the pumpkin. She washed it carefully, getting rid of any germs, and put it down on the chopping-board. If Jack had pupils, they'd be shrinking. "What?!"

She picked up the shining knife and savagely cut her way into the vegetable, the occasional splatter of pumpkin landing on her faded black t-shirt. Jack bit his lip, watching and wincing as she tortured his once-then-soldier that had survived the dreaded Halloween night. Jane hummed to herself as she put the butter and milk into the saucepan, not really caring how much went in, and turned up the heat.

"Why is she _eating _them?!?" Jack yelled, pressing his head against the image. "They're meant to be destroying all of Endsville when I get back there! Not being dissolved in stomach acids!!"

Jane didn't hear the pumpkin ranting on the other side of the portal, so she tipped all the pumpkin pieces into the saucepan, watching them fall with a 'plunk' and 'plink' into the mixture of hot cream. Jack groaned and gave himself a face-palm. If this was going to happen every time he found a crack in the ground, he'd stay where he was next time.

And yet the whole time he couldn't take his eyes off it. It was like a car-crash. Disturbing, but you just couldn't look away. He wanted to watch what she did next. Curiosity killed the cat.

Jane put on her iPod and sat herself down at the kitchen table, causing Jack's smile to fade. How very boring indeed. He sat cross-legged, staring into the glowing mist with interest, waiting for the next thing to happen.

...

...

...

"HOW LONG IS THIS GOING TO TAKE?!" Jack yelled at Jane, ignoring the fact she couldn't hear him. He glared at Jane and started to get up, only noticing something interesting.

Jane's foot was tapping.

She nodded her head every so often, smiling one of the cutest smiles Jack had seen. She got off her seat, turning the iPod all the way up so that the room was filled with noise. She twirled in a circle, her skirt flaring in a perfect 360. Jack laughed, she reminded him of one of those ballerinas in a music box.

_'He took me to the spider club on Hollywood and Vine, we drank champagne and we danced all night...' _the iPod blasted. Jack knew this song, he didn't love it, but he knew it. What he found the strangest of all was that a Goth girl like her could be so energetic. It was just... weird.

Jane smiled, her heart beating faster and faster as she danced. Each step became faster, each twirl became smoother, and she was in heaven. She could hear the crowd screaming her name, the lights flashing upon her, and the world watching her every move. She loved the attention, everyone watching her with amazed eyes. For once, everyone was watching her be the person she was. And she loved it.

_'Sweet talkin', sugar coated candy-man...' _Christina sang, as Jane giggled at the rush of bubbles going to her head. Jack laughed with her, she was just too cute to be true. But then his eyes looked over to the stove-top...

"What's cookin', good lookin'?" he chuckled, watching the soup boiling over without any signs of stopping. Jane heard the bubbling pot over the top of the music, and her heels hit the floor again as she stopped dancing at long last. She made a strange squeak noise in panic and rushed over to the stove. If a fire started, she could've burnt down the whole house.

She picked up saucepan in bare hands by the handle, which wasn't exactly a smart move to make. She yelped at the heat of the metal and by pure instinct dropped it, the orange contents spilling everywhere. Jack laughed, his sides hurting so badly, at the mess she had made all over the floor. She was a genius of comedy, and it was a pity that he was the only one in the audience.

Jane quickly picked up the pan again and threw it into the sink, running over to a closet and pulling out a mop and bucket. She filled the bucket half-way with cold water and dropped it on the floor, trying her best to clean it before her parents got home.

Jack stopped laughing as a familiar feeling came over him. It was the same tingle, except softer and less controlling. He could feel a sort of... _glow_ around him. Like when you finish a project at long last and you just fall backwards in relief. Something like that. He looked back down at Jane, who was mopping up the rest of the soup. He recognised where she had spilt it...

...it was the place he had been murdered by that dreaded knight...

...the place where Grim had promised him immortality...

...And now it was the place where an innocent teenager had spilt her lunch. Funny how one of the three completely ruined the feel, huh?

"Hey, squash-head!" a dragon-like beast growled from behind the rocks. Jack got to his feet at once, recognising one of his beloved nicknames that had been used so often in the Underworld. Plus, he didn't want the guard to find out about the vortex. Who knows, Jack could have used it later on in order to escape this nightmare. (Foreshadowing rocks!)

"Alright, alright, I'm coming already..." Jack said, rolling eyes if he had any there. The beast emerged from the rocks and grabbed Jack's neck, keeping a firm grip on him. Jack struggled and kicked, for he knew what was coming up next. But unlike all the other times he was beaten into an orange pulp, his head spun faster than usual and the glowing feeling still suffocated him.

Jane put her mop away and left the floor to dry, putting the saucepan back in the sink. As the tap started running, she couldn't help but feel kinda dizzy... he head hurt, but it felt comforting at the same time... she hardly ever got the flu, and no person would get it this suddenly. She rested her head in her hands, trying to ease the pain. This was just weird... what was happening?

"_You _were the one who threw the cream-pies, weren't you Jack?" the guard said. His hot breath filled Jack's air, and the smell was so overpowering that it was a wonder he hadn't caught gingivitis.

"Can't a guy have a little fun once in while?" Jack asked, playing innocent even though he was close to choking. The glowing feeling was smothering him, and there was a white mist in Jack's vision. He could only just make out the outline of the beast. He tried closing his eyes, but the white mist just got brighter

"What the hell is wrong with you?" the beast said, shaking Jack. His eyes snapped open, but he couldn't see anything. Just a white mist that clouded his whole body. The beast couldn't feel what he felt, or see what he saw. He didn't have a neck, so he couldn't check out the shining portal behind him. This was just between Jane and Jack. "What's going on?!"

Jane coughed, this smothering feeling working its way down her throat. What was happening? Was she dying? Why did she feel like this? She didn't notice the bright mist coming out of the wooden floorboards, for she couldn't even see the hand in front of her face. Just a white vision as she fell to the kitchen floor, tears running down her face. She wasn't in any pain, just dizzy and confused... what was happening to her?

"Answer me, pumpkin!" the beast shook Jack again as he spoke. Jack coughed and hacked, some green saliva hitting the red scales of the guard as he was dropped to the floor. This feeling, it had all control over him. It actually felt... kinda funny... he giggled as he curled into a ball, holding his sides together. The beast rolled his eyes and left him there, walking back over to behind the rocks. "Crazy lunatic..."

The bright mist that came from both sides of the portal grew brighter and brighter... until finally it faded away. Jane couldn't see anything from where she was sitting, but Jack could see now, as the mist cleared away from his view, that the portal was down to a dim glow of light around the edges. His giggle turned to full-on laughter as he rolled onto his back and his mind went dark.

Jane's misty vision cleared and she lay back on the floor, exhausted from what had just happened. She didn't know what it was... but she could swear that she heard the sound of someone laughing as her mind went black and she fell unconscious.

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**CrazyA: **In case you haven't noticed, Jane hasn't talked AT ALL in the story so far. Next chapter is EPIC, in more ways than one, so please keep reading.


	3. Hey There, Hi There, Hello There

**CrazyA: **Jack, you out here?

**Jack: **Hi, how was your day?

**CrazyA: **Oh fine, it was cool... wait a minute... are you and Joker having a private contest to see who can win me over?

**Jack: **I have no idea what you're talking about... *_hides score-chart behind back*_

**CrazyA: **Oh... well you're winning if you really are... *_snogging in process* *Jack draws a point for him on the chart_*

**Joker: **GOD EFFING DAMN IT! HE PAYED ATTENTION TO HER!!

**Zim: **Readers, he's just upset because he can't pay attention to the o-so-annoying Acorn of CRAZZZYYYY!!!! while Pumpkin-dude can. If you bow and worship Zim, then maybe he'll be quiet. *_Joker hits him in the jaw*_

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**3. Hey There, Hi There, Hello There  
_'If you change your mind I'm the first in line. Honey I'm still free, take a chance on me. If you need me, let me know, gonna be around. If you've got no place to go, if you're feeling down...' – _**Take a Chance on Me, ABBA

When Jane woke up from an empty sleep, her parents still weren't home. So that meant she still had time to clean up the kitchen and wash the dishes. When they _did _come back home, Jane didn't even mention what happened. She just passed off that white-light nonsense as a seizure. Nothing more than that. Her parents had no need to worry.

So why did she still doubt herself about that thing anyway?

It was December, so Jane didn't have to go to school for another two-or-so months. But her parents were still out looking for jobs. Mom was trying to find a spot at the local elementary school, she was good around kids and she heard that they were looking for a school councillor. Dad, on the other hand, was struggling with office jobs. When they heard that he was fired (but why he told them this, Jane will _never _know) they usually sent him away.

"I have all the skills, but they just won't accept me!" he would yell whenever he came home from a day of searching. Jane always hid upstairs in her room, iPod up loud, so that she wasn't involved in that awkward conversation. Especially whenever he yelled: "_I _have to provide for the family! Even for that screwed-up kid we have!!"

Way to feel loved, hey?

So now they were both out at job interviews, leaving Jane alone in the house for the third time that week. She didn't care; she got to have more fun when she was by herself. She plugged her iPod into her speakers, turning it up as loud as it could go. She had a playlist of rock music that she listened to whenever she needed to tick off Dad, so her parents thought that she was going through the classic 'dark phase' that came with being a teenager. But they didn't know that it was just _one_ playlist.

The rest of her iPod contained everything else a normal teenage girl would have on there. Christina, Britney, Madonna, ABBA... well, except for the techno songs like 'Blue' and 'Sexy Vampire'. The list went on with Lady GaGa, Justin and a whole long line of other pop-stars. Most of them fitted onto one playlist named 'Project Awesome.'

AKA: The dancing playlist.

She put the playlist on shuffle and smiled at the song that came up.

_'I've had a little bit too much, oh OH oh Oh...' _GaGa sang. _'All of the people start to rush by.' _It was Jane's favourite song. She was dressed in only a singlet and pyjama-shorts, with long striped socks on to keep warm, but she still bopped her head to the beat and did a shuffle-move to the beat. Her iPod tucked in nicely between her hips and the elastic of her shorts and her ear-plugs fitted snugly in her ears.

She danced with power, with strength and with joy. Step to the side, shimmy, shimmy, jump to the left... it all came naturally. She loved dancing, it was her secret passion. She loved her heart-beat when it went in time with the music, and the feel of her body moving naturally to the beat. It was a form of drug for her, and she found it so addictive. Dancing gave her the best feeling in the world, and nothing else could stop her from it.

Well, except for Jack.

He woke up slowly, letting out a yawn and revealing rows of yellow teeth. He rubbed the dirt and dust from the corners of his eye-holes, sticking his whole finger inside the socket to get the job done. "Good morning, magical-glowing-portal-thing..." he muttered sleepily.

Ever since that 'tingling' day, he had been keeping close to the portal. You know, just in case anything accidentally fell into there while he wasn't watching. He realised that the portal could move to wherever that teenager was. He saw her basic life right before his eyes, and couldn't help but feel a little sorry for her.

Her father hated her.

Her mother didn't understand her.

And she was... well, she was just fun to watch.

But not once had she heard her talk. At all. To _anyone. _Or even to herself. Which was a shame for him, because he was curious to figure out why that was the case. He made his way to the portal, looking inside it to see where he was now.

"Well look at that..." he muttered, lying down on his stomach and crossing his legs in the air like a teenage girl. Oh yay, she was dancing again. She danced whenever the 'rents were out. It was quite good fun to watch. But each song had been upbeat with no real meaning. So she danced with no meaning in simple, fun steps. But this dance was... different. In Jack's time, a dance was sophisticated ballroom where every girl was hidden underneath a corset and massive skirt. But Jane obviously didn't live in that time...

Her chest rose and fell in perfect time, and her hips circled round and round in perfect circles every time she moved. She wasn't underneath layers and layers of clothing like she usually was when Jack found her. Instead, her black shirt and jeans were replaced with silky sleeping shorts and a lacy singlet that hugged her body. And her smile...

"Holy cow, she's hot."

Tight dancer's legs and wild curls of hair. No one in the 17th century had a body like that. She was dancing with power, Jack could tell by the beads of sweat that remained on her face and the strength she put into every move. He gulped and tugged on his cone-like collar. Was it hotter than it usually was in Hell, or just him?

Hey, he died when he was only twenty and sex before marriage was considered brutal in his lifetime. What the hell was he supposed to do?!?

Jack's jaw dropped a good inch as he watched in fascination. He had _never _seen this before. GaGa must've put something in her lyrics to make her dance like this. Even the song itself agreed with Jack: _'I can see that you've got so much energy, the way you're twirling up your hips round and round. And now there's no reason at all why you can't leave here with me, in the meantime stay and let me watch you break it down.'_

Okay, maybe not that leaving with him thing. But still. He would've gone down there if he could...

"Where are you, pumpkin?!" a guard yelled. Jack was startled from this new view on Jane and one of the hands that supported his head fell...

...into the portal.

"What the...?" Jack muttered, pulling his hand back out again. His finger-tips felt numb, but apart from that he was fine. The last time he tried getting into the portal, his fingertips just scratched the image like a piece of glass. He looked over his shoulder, he could see the guard getting closer.

Now or never.

Jack jumped into the glowing image, his whole body feeling like pins 'n' needles. He closed his eyes, feeling like he was about to fall asleep. But as soon as he closed them, a blinding light made him open them again. The image swallowed him whole as he felt his body fall through the air and land...

A FEW MILI-SECONDS EARLIER

Jane twirled and twirled, her heart and soul were long gone now. She felt free, released, and relaxed. Her mind wandered off over the rainbow as she let go of all the built-up pressures of that week in one four-minute song. The song finished and she turned off her iPod. Well, time to get dressed. She shed her pyjama shorts and threw them aside, humming the tune of the just-danced-to song. She was about to tear off her singlet when she suddenly felt a sudden increase of gravity and fell to the floor, her head landing with a 'thud'.

"Oh toaster, that hurt..." she muttered. She sat up, her arms supporting her weight, as she looked at what fell on top of her...

Her pupils shrank.

A stranger, she assumed male, dressed in purple gloves, boots, hat and pants. He lifted up his head and she gasped at what she found. A round, bright orange pumpkin with a Halloween smile. He gasped at her face, yes, _gasped. _A gasping pumpkin that fell from the ceiling and was lying on top of her... an innocent teenager dressed in nothing but her underwear, socks and about-to fall-off singlet.

"AAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!" she let out an ear-piercing scream that caused the ravens on the roof to fly away as fast as possible. She kneed him in the crotch and shuffled backwards from underneath him, grabbing her cell-phone from her bedside table as he groaned in agony. She dialled 911 and pressed the phone to her ear, staring at the pumpkin-zombie that had hit her.

"Hello?! I know this sounds stupid but a pumpkin just fell from my ceiling and tried to rape me!" Jack sharply got to his feet and limped over to her as fast as he could, trying to get the phone off of her. "STAY BACK! I'LL SCREAM AGAIN!" She inhaled as much air as she could, but Jack just quickly put a gloved hand over her mouth. With his free hand he grabbed the phone off of her and quickly turned it off.

"Don't scream, you'll just make things worse..." he said/ordered/pleaded. She tried talking, but all that Jack could hear was mumbling and swearing. After a minute of non-stop ranting, she finally went quiet. Ironic that after months of being permanently silent, she could talk for ages. "All better?" Jack asked. Jane thought for a moment, but eventually nodded. He slowly took his hand away, smiling at the girl's terrified expression.

"W-Who are you?" she asked in a whisper of a voice.

"You buy a house in the middle of a strange city and you don't even bother to look up on the history," he said, chuckling. "Well I suggest you get going, since I'm back in my house you and your family won't be living here for much longer."

"We bought the house! We've got nowhere else to go..." Jane said, her eyes pleading for mercy.

"Does it look like I have a problem with that?" Jack said, smiling all the while. "Now beat it!" His voice turned dark and he hiked a thumb at the stairs. Jane looked from him to the staircase and shook her head slowly, a determined expression on her face. Jack groaned and grabbed her wrist, not caring about the fact that she was kicking and screaming, and pushed her down the stairs. Jane didn't fall, but she wasn't graceful. She stumbled down the spiralling staircase, and landed carefully on two feet. Jack came down behind her, using the railing as a slide, and pushed against her back for her to get out.

"I'm only in my underwear!" she screamed, trying to remain standing. Jack was stronger, and bull-dozed her out the front door into the freezing cold afternoon. But just as he was about to close the door, Jane grabbed his collar and pulled him outside, running back inside while the door was ajar.

To Jane, the world outside the door was cold and white. With snow falling onto the earth and the people of Endsville driving all over the streets, it was a beautiful average sight.

To Jack, it was something different.

He was all by himself, Jane was invisible to him. The scenery was made up of bitter yellow sand and twisted rocks of red and green with five moons in the sky and one flaming white sun. He could swear that the world smelt of cinnamon, and he could hear ghostly voices call after him. Even though it was a just a huge prank, he still felt chilled to the bone. He turned around, the entire house had vanished and there was just the front door. As soon as he stepped back inside, everything went back to normal. He turned around to get a last look at that dimension, but he could only see what Jane saw. White snow and traffic.

A step outside, and yellow sand coated his boots.

He couldn't leave the house.

Just like old times.

Fan-freaking-tastic.

Jack sighed and went back inside, closing the door behind him. Jane was standing on the bottom of the stairs, with a rolling-pin from the kitchen in her hand. "I _will _use this..." she said threateningly. Jack smirked and pulled out the feather from his hat (hooray for the feather!), holding it out to her.

"I've slayed dragons from hell with this very feather..." he exaggerated. Jane raised an eyebrow, but didn't let her guard down. He stretched his arm out to her, but she side-stepped it and hit him over the back of his head.

For someone who did a dancing work-out nearly every day of her life, she was pretty weak.

She stared, wide-eyed as Jack grabbed the pin and tossed it to the other side of the room. Her heart raced faster as he grabbed her by her hair, dragging her from the step. She fell to the floor and he dragged her backwards by the lock of hair in his fist. "Please! I don't want to die!"

"I'm not going to kill you, don't get all dramatic on me..."

"Then you'll just rape me and leave me lying in a gutter!" she screamed, kicking the floorboards and picking at his grip with her fingernails. "My parents are coming home soon and they won't be happy when they see their only child bleeding from the waist-down on their doormat!"

"I wouldn't _dare _touch a girl!"

"THEN YOU'RE GAY!!!" Jane screamed, grabbing his leg with her free arm and tripping him over. "Why the hell would you rape a girl if you were gay!!?!?"

Jack fell over, landing just in front of the door, and let go of Jane in the process. She scrambled to her feet and kicked him in the leg before running to her parent's room. It was the only room inside the house with a locked door. She slammed the door shut and locked it tightly, leaning against the wood of the door and letting out a sigh of relief. She spotted her mother's mobile on her bedside table and rushed to her feet. She grabbed it at once and tried dialling 911 again. Jack pounded his fist against the wood of the door, trying to get her attention. "Stay the hell away from me!!" She yelled.

"Can't I even _try _to explain?!" Jack called through the wood of the door. "Besides, _you're _the one that needs to get out! This is my house!"

"No it isn't, you pumpkin-zombie!!" Jane yelled as she pressed dial. The dial-tone started and a smile came to her face. "Get out or I send the police over!"

"I _CAN'T _GET OUT!!" he yelled, kicking the door in frustration. Jane heard the stranger fall to the floor in exhaustion, resting his head on the door. She looked over her shoulder, the phone still at her ear, listening to only the dial-tone. She could see his shadow underneath the door, and the lonely ringing that came from the phone just made her feel worse.

"I must be crazy..." Jane muttered as she walked over slowly to the door, turning off the phone as she went. She didn't open it up, in case he did try anything on her, but she sat on the other side of the door and crossed her legs as if he were talking to her face-to-face.

Jack heard her footsteps and looked up, but the door stayed closed. He saw her shadow beneath the door grow darker as she sat down, and he could even spot wool-coated toes. "What do you mean, you can't get out?"

He sighed and put his head in his hands. "I have no idea... Every time I step outside the house, it transforms into this whole other world... I really _must _be in hell..."

"You think you're in hell?" Jane asked. She used to follow her Mom to work when she was younger, and she remembered the type of relaxed voice that she put on with her patients.

"I _was_..." Jack answered. "The Grim Reaper sent me there after a little fun I had on Hallow's Eve... but then a portal opened in my house..."

"_My _house."

"Whatever. And I ended up here..."

Jane went quiet, thinking things over. "When the... portal opened... did you feel... smothered? Like someone was drowning you in honey or something like that?"

"And a blinding light?"

"Exactly!" Jane exclaimed, smiling slightly. "But... why us? Why then?"

"Maybe it was the soup..." Jack muttered. Jane heard anyway, and a blush spread across her face.

"You saw that?" she asked.

"Do you always chop up vegetables like that?" Jack asked. "Or are pumpkins a sudden release for your energy?"

Jane's marshmallow-pink face turned tomato red. "I'm sorry... If I had known that you were watching..."

"It's fine..."

"But it's murder in your eyes... I feel terrible now..."

"Why?"

"Because I love pumpkins..." she confessed. "My dad says it's an 'unhealthy obsession' and that I should get more meat into my diet... but... I don't know... to me, they're like bread and butter. I grew up on them. We had them nearly twice a week back in New York. And even before that Mom spoon-fed me pumpkin mash when I was a kid... I'm sorry that I'm going on about it like this-"

"Nah, don't be. It's kinda interesting hearing you actually _talk_..." Jack said, smiling a little. "Truth be told, I've been watching you for a few days now. Your life is so... _mad_."

"_You're _the mad one... and the pervert."

"Do you _always _turn the subject to disgusting topics?" Jack asked, his mouth close to the door so that she could hear him loud and clear. "How did we get started on this, anyway?"

"So you recently escaped a hell-like dimension..." Jane said, turning around and leaning her back on the door. She heard Jack do the same on the other side. "...using a portal on my bedroom ceiling..."

"The portal moves, depending on where you are."

"Why am _I _suddenly so important in life? No one's noticed me before, so why the hell would a portal suddenly follow my every move?"

"Maybe it was because you were the one that spilt the soup..."

"That seems about right..." she muttered. "As soon as I screw up, everyone watches me with eagle eyes..." She went quiet for a minute, allowing herself to get lost in silence for a minute, before continuing. "So now you've tried going outside, but all you find is this strange new world..."

"That's pretty much it."

"...and you just want your house back?"

"Yes-sir-ee..."

"Not gonna happen..." Jane said firmly. "My family still lives here, and if Dad finds out I accidentally let a pumpkin-zombie into the house, he'll unleash pain and misery on me and Mom."

"Can't be _that _bad..." Jack argued back.

Jane bit her lip, pulling her knees close to her chest. She didn't even breathe. She stayed perfectly still, trying to block out the painful memories and bruises. She remembered the night he had been fired; she had never seen him so furious. She had never seen _anyone _that furious. She breathed deeply, trying to relax, and released her lip from her teeth. Jack was hugging his own knees on the other side of the door, resting his chin between his knees in boredom. He didn't know what was so wrong with what he had said, but it seemed to have an effect on her.

"You still there, doll-face?" he called out. Jane didn't respond, she hugged her knees tighter. She did the same thing whenever she felt uncomfortable or scared... she bit through the skin of her lip, a tiny drop of blood trickling down her chin which she wiped away stubbornly. She rested her head on her knees, trying to be one with the dark again...

"I know you're still there," Jack interrupted her thoughts. "I can hear you sniffling... Hey, you're not crying, are you?"

Jane sat up at once, nearly hitting the back of her head on the door. "No..." she whispered loud enough for him to hear. She heard her stomach growl fiercely... she hadn't had anything to eat. She would have to get out of that room one day... "You never gave me your name..."

Jack smirked, he just knew she was going to love this. "I'll whisper you mine if you whisper me yours..." Jane kept silent. She was strong-willed, and wasn't thick enough to fall for any of his tricks. But then suddenly, in the middle of a silent second, she whispered at last...

"Jane... Jane Simmons..." she said in the ghost of a whisper. Jack smiled. Sweet name for a sweet girl. Of course. "So what about you?" she asked, her hand on the lock of the door. If he answered, then she'd open it. If not... her Mom's mobile was right next to her.

"Jack O'Lantern..." he whispered his reply into the crack of the door. It was a stupid name, and anyone could immediately assume it as a false one. Especially if that 'anyone' was a teenager he had fallen on top of while she was getting dressed. But Jane... she didn't know what it was... but somehow she could trust him. Whether it was the fact he knew what the portal's effects were like or the fact that he used her favourite vegetable as a head, Jane didn't know. But her hand unlocked the door, and Jack was surprised when he heard the soft 'click' as it did so.

He got to his feet and walked away from the door, watching as Jane slowly opened it up. She stayed behind in the room, only leaving the door slightly ajar. He hadn't come to rape her yet, so that was a good sign on her half. "Look, you can stay up in my room if you want to. Just promise that you'll try and keep out of trouble... and if you even _dare _try anything stupid I'll turn you into soup and serve you with toast."

"I'll try my best..." he said, giving his most gruesome smile. Jane opened the door all the way, slightly scared by the smile, but overall okay. Her eyes were a little red, and Jack could spot the bruise he had made on her wrist. But apart from that, she looked reasonably calm. "You're taking this whole thing pretty well by the looks of it..." he said, looking at her up and down.

"On the inside, my stomach's trying to eat itself..."

"Good to know. Let's see if I can remember where my own kitchen is."

* * *

**CrazyA: ***_snogging finished somewhere half-way in chapter* *spots Joker with binoculars*_ Hi! Watcha doing?

**Joker: **Go away, I'm busy.

**CrazyA: **What with? Why do you have binoculars?

**Jack: **If you were spying on us again, at least put the videos on YouTube this time instead of 'Blackmail . com'

**Joker: **WHY DOES EVERYONE ASSUME THAT I SPY ON YOU TWO?!?

**CrazyA: **Because you do. REVIEW GUYS!


	4. Feels Like Forever

**CrazyA: **Jack?! You out here?

**Jack: **I'm not speaking to you!! You left my story for that grren thing!

**CrazyA: **Pumpkin-pie, I can explain!

**Joker: **I TOLD YOU SHE'S A WHORE!! _*bitch-slap to the face, knee to the groin* _WHAT THE HELL?!?

**CrazyA: **THAT'S FOR LEAVING OUT 'PSYCHOTIC!!'

* * *

**4. Feels Like Forever**

Jane came back from upstairs, finally dressed at long last. Black cotton dress and green lace, a stylish Goth number that was alright for just around the house. Shame, because Jack sort of missed the whole 'singlet-and-socks' look she pulled off nicely. ^^

"What have you got in your pantry?" he asked, opening it up before she could answer. Ten cereal boxes, five of them sugary, and a loaf of bread waited for him as well as several pasta sauces and spices. Jane sat down on a bar-table chair, resting her arms comfortably on the counter top. She watched him with curiosity as he pulled out cereal after cereal, setting them up in a neat line on the counter, and the loaf of bread.

"How about I go kill a small elephant for you instead?" she said, smirking as he started raiding the fridge.

"Hey, I spent three hundred years trapped in this house, only once a year able to go buy groceries. Then another month in starvation in a pit of Hell and flames. You do the math."

"Fine, fine," Jane muttered, grabbing the most sugary cereal that she could find. "Just easy it up, okay? I don't want to explain why half the fridge has been eaten..." She got off her seat and grabbed a bowl hidden in the back of a cupboard, grabbing a second bowl for Jack, and made herself a massive bowl of colourful sugars.

Jack watched her in amazement as she took a spoon the size of a shovel and started eating what to her was a 'light breakfast'. "I'm pretty sure that no teenage girl is able to do that..." Jane just shrugged her shoulders and chewed her mouthful slowly, swallowing it with ease.

"I have a high metabolism..." she said at last. "Plus, I'm quite an active person underneath all this Goth."

"Yeah, I know..." Jack said, pouring his own cereal. Jane stopped chewing on her cereal and watched him, her face slowly turning into a marshmallow.

"What do you mean, 'you know'?" she asked. "What part of my life have you been watching?"

Jack just turned around, not answering her. He knew he had stumbled upon forbidden ground, and it was time to run like hell in the opposite direction. He hummed instead an old lullaby he remembered from so long ago, it was the only song he could remember and would have to do for a scapegoat.

Jane stared at him, waiting for an answer, but she knew exactly what was going on. "First off, the fact that you've been watching me dance is just... weird. Secondly, don't do it ever again and thirdzly..."

"'Thirdzly?'"

"Don't ask. And _third_..." she said, rolling her eyes as she said it. Her face fell as she went silent, thinking it over in her head. "Actually, that's about it..." She stirred her cereal, watching the colourful circles fall over each other. "If you want coffee, then it's hidden in the top cupboard."

"I don't drink coffee..." Jack said, still inspecting the fridge. Truth was, he had never tried coffee, but he felt that he didn't need to. He had nothing to be in a rush for, and the excitement of Halloween was enough of a buzz for him when he went out that one day a year.

"Same," Jane replied with a mouthful of cereal. "I just drink hot chocolate instead. Speaking of which, I need to go down to the store later today and pick some up. Anything you want me to get?"

Jack looked over his shoulder, watching her closely to make sure she wasn't joking. "Why are you asking me?"

"Well you said it yourself. You just came from a dimension in Hell and you haven't left the house in pretty much three hundred years." She finished her cereal and put her bowl in the sink, starting to fill it up with water. "So I figured you might be needing some stuff in order to fill up your boring life."

Jack smiled at her, pulling out a bottle of orange-juice from the fridge and setting it out on the counter. "Well since you asked... I've got a few things I wouldn't mind having..."

"Just write down a list, and I'll buy whatever I can smuggle inside."

Jack grinned at her, wondering how lucky he got to get someone like her as a new room-mate. "I'm beginning to like you, kid..."

"Well I'm still pissed off that you randomly fell from the sky and tried kicking me out of my own house. So if you try telling me that we're friends, then I'll buy rat poison instead." Jack chuckled and drained a glass of OJ in one gulp. Jane stared at him, watching as he kept humming the same tune over and over. "...what was it like when you died?"

Jack looked at her as he put two slices of thick white bread into the toaster. He grinned as he pressed the button down, watching the bread hide inside the tiny box. Life was so much easier nowadays... "Whoever said I died?"

"What?" Jane dropped her glass of juice on the floorboards, the shattering of glass taking up the only sound in the room. "Oh toaster..." she muttered, grabbing a sponge from the sink and a roll of paper-towels. "But you said the Grim Reaper-"

"-its long story, Jane my girl. But in a nutshell, I tricked the poor sap into immortality," Jack explained. Jane's pupils went tiny, and she stopped rubbing the floor in circles with her sponge.

"You can't die? At all? Ever?" she asked in amazement. The fact that he had called death himself a sap was cool enough for her, this was just an extra slice of cake. Jack nodded, still humming the same tune. He watched the toaster in boredom, not paying attention to the sound of Jane rummaging through kitchen drawers. "So, just checking, you're not kidding about being immortal? You seriously met Death and tricked him into letting you live forever?"

"As real as the nose on my face!" Jack said, laughing himself silly. "But yes, it's true. I cheated my way into becoming an immortal."

All was quiet for a minute or so, until Jack realised that there was something in the reflection of the toaster. Jane had a bread-knife in her hand, and was slowly tip-toeing up behind him. Jack turned around, eyebrow raised, as she stopped in her tracks and tried hiding the knife away behind her back.

"Just curious, as all..."

"What if I had been lying?"

"I was only going to get you in the leg," Jane said innocently as she put the knife back in the block of shining metal with its brothers. "Honest to God." Jack kept staring at her in the questioning manner he did whenever someone went weird on him. "Hey! I'm a Goth teenager, what do you expect?!?"

"You're not Goth," Jack said. The toaster beeped as the slightly-burnt slices of bread popped out from the slots. He snatched them in one hand and took out a jar of marmalade from the fridge. "You're a poser of Goth."

Jane sat on the counter, swinging her legs backwards and forwards in boredom and interest. "Explain your conclusions."

"Well, from what I've seen of you in these past..." Jack started counting on his fingers, muttering each number slowly. "...five days, you're too energetic to be Goth. Your wardrobe doesn't suit who you really are. You dance to Lady GaGa and therefore, are not Goth."

Jane stared at him, a blank expression on her face. Then, like a used party napkin, her face crumpled up and she put her head in her hands. Her shoulders shook and muted sounds escaped her throat. At first, Jack thought that she was crying. But then her head snapped back up and she burst into musical laughter.

The only laughter Jack had heard in a long time was his own, or the cackle that some of the monsters in that fiery pit made when they broke him into pieces. That was just one of the reasons why this was surprising for him. Secondly, he had only known Jane as an actual person for less than a day, and she was already laughing even before he used the feather on her.

And thirdzly...

... she had just spent the last five days in total silence, probably even more than that. The last thing he would expect her to do was laugh.

In fact, she couldn't stop. Whether it was the fact she hadn't laughed in ages, and just didn't know _how _to stop, or if it was just incredibly funny for her, it didn't matter. She just laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Tears streaked down her face, and all Jack could do was watch with a smile on his face. Jane clutched her sides, trying to stop but failing hysterically. Her swinging legs were thrashing the air now, making herself very open for a sarcastic remark at how she looked.

But, for the first time in what felt like forever, she couldn't really give a damn.

She slowly, ever so slowly, sat herself upright again, and Jack could actually decipher some of the gurgles she was trying to say. "You... you're the first person to actually _get _that!!" she said with a wide smile.

"What _are _you on about?" Jack asked. Jane stopped laughing at long last and looked at him in the eye, her eyes still sparkling from her over-exposure to comedy.

"You're the first person to say I'm not Goth," she said. Jack continued staring at her, getting more and more confused by the second. Jane understood the familiar face he was pulling and sighed, knowing that she had to explain it all from the top. "Let me explain..."

In New York, I went to the public high school. And most of the girls there were platinum blonde, anorexically thin and in fashion... whatever the hell _that_ was. I was way different, and I had other interests then them. I had random sayings and was, I guess, a bit of a nerd. I didn't have any friends, and the teachers often thought I was stuck-up whenever I was being sarcastic. So pretty much, I was hated by nearly everyone and thing.

_Then, _we went onto the subject of 'Sex-Ed'. And everyone started talking about it whenever they could. One girl, who I guess was trying to be nice or something... anyway, she asked me if I had a boyfriend. I told her 'no', and soon the whole school decided I was an official freak. But this time, a freak who still hadn't lost her virginity yet."

"Wait a second," Jack interrupted, waving a hand in her face. "You were bullied because you hadn't lost your virginity?" Jane nodded. "What the heck is wrong with the world?!?"

"You watched the world change slowly, bit by bit over time, Jack. But I guess you just never learnt how big of a change that was..."

"But seriously! How old were you? Fifteen?"

"Thirteen."

"Christ!" Jack nearly choked on his toast.

"Can I continue?" Jane asked. Jack coughed, nodding at the same time as he tried to remove the toast from his throat. "Anyway, everyone called me a freak Either to my face or behind my back. They kept telling me that I was scary, weird, and just plain confusing. So I decided that if the people wanted flour, I'd give them cake.

I started dressing up in anything black and disturbing, reading books on dark poetry and Wicca groups. Everyone stopped calling me a freak, in fact they stopped talking to me at all. I was noticed, but ignored. I don't count myself as invisible, because if I was then that would be cool. I was just ignored, simple as that.

So in order to stop people from calling me all those other horrible names, I had to just let them call me a single horrible one. And... that's pretty much it."

Jack stared at her, wondering how the hell she kept smiling. She just swung her legs happily, acting casual, but Jack noticed that her smile was smaller than when it was before she had started the story. "So this whole time you've been worried about what people think of you?"

"Yeah, you can put it that way. My dad says that I'm just looking for attention, but then again my dad says a lot of stuff about me."

Jack just stood in silence as she got off the kitchen counter and walked back down the hallway, saying something about getting her iPod. He didn't really pay that much attention, he was too dissolved in his own personal thoughts. Jack was the type of person who didn't care what people thought about him, he just wanted to do what he did. He couldn't imagine Jane's situation, it just seemed stupid to him.

But Jane was right, as much as he hated to say it. He had watched this world evolve, from cottages to apartments, from carts to buses. He only saw the scenery change, but never the actual people. He didn't understand how the human mind worked now, or what basic traditions were. All he knew was that it was very different from what his old ones were...

...thank God that Halloween was still one of them.

Jane came back, wearing a purple jacket over her dress and skull-candy headphones clamped over her ears for both style and to warm her ears up. Jack was still deep in thought when she arrived in the kitchen, slamming a piece of paper down on the table.

"Write down what you want," she said, throwing a pen at him. Jack clumsily caught it in one hand, as he was putting his crumb-coated plate in the sink. Breaking from his private thoughts, he wrote down everything he could think of, from whipped-cream to rubber chickens, anything a prankster would start off with. Jane stared at the long list, eyes wide in a state of awe and disbelief. Just as he was starting to turn over onto the back of the page, she grabbed the paper from underneath him.

"I don't have an endless bank-account you know."

"Well how much money _do _you have?"

Jane opened up her wallet, counting every coin and note until she finally came to the amount of $40.65. "I'll buy as much as I can with the change, but I have to be careful. Dad will freak if he catches any... 'whoopee cushions' hidden under the sofa."

"Don't worry," Jack said giving his best smile to her. "I wouldn't even think about doing something like that." He crossed his fingers behind his back, trying hard not to laugh as the image of her Dad letting out a gasser. Oh that day would come...

Jane gave him a last good staring-at before walking out of the door, leaving Jack alone in the house as long last. It was time for him to find out _exactly _what was going on...

* * *

_*everyone coated in bruises, lying around on the floor with broken limbs*_

**CrazyA: **This...this is why I hate being a fangirl...

**Joker and Jack: **How do you think WE feel?

_*CA just groans and falls unconcious*_


	5. Abnormal Abnormalities

**Jack: **Jess? Is that really you?

**CrazyA: **Better believe it... I haven't left you entirely, yanno.

**Jack: **I missed you

**CrazyA: **I missed you more! Waaaahhh!! Damn writer's-block!!!

**Jack: **More like hypnosis from Joker... Read and review!!!!

* * *

**5. Abnormal Abnormalities  
**_**'Little Red Ridin'-Hood, I don't think little even big girls should go walkin' in these spooky old woods alone…'-** __Lil' Red Riding Hood, _Bowling for Soup

Jack walked calmly up the spiralling stairs, well... more like skipping up the stairs, but it doesn't really matter. When he reached the top he found himself back in Jane's room, but the swirling white portal had vanished. There was no going back for him. He didn't want to go back anyway, so he left the thought as a mere shrug of the shoulders.

"She said something about Wicca books..." he muttered to himself. He saw a tall, dark brown bookshelf in the corner of the room and slowly made his way over to it, trying not to trip over any of the cast-away clothes. God, teenagers were filthy things, weren't they? Every one of the books in the shelf had a Gothic cover design, with the occasional devilish symbol in a deep gruesome red. That must've been them.

"I still don't see why Jane reads..." his voice got lost somewhere as he stepped forward, hearing a squeak in the floorboards. He looked down and saw that he had stepped on a loose panel, which was covering an air-gap underneath. He crouched down frog-style and pushed away the board, uncovering a series of brightly-coloured magazines: Normal, teenage-girl, beauty-boys-environment-magazines that any normal girl read. Of course, she had to hide away any image of normality.

He covered the gap again, moving the floorboard back into place. He knew that if he mentioned them to her, she would have a miniature freak-out. Looking back up, he pulled out one of the lighter-looking books from its place. _Animal Sacrifices and Torture Devices._

No.

He threw the book aside, knowing at once that it wasn't going to be a happy reading session. Book after book was thrown aside, each one more deadly than the first. "Jane, as soon as I get out of this house and start my reign of zesty evil... I'm buying you a joke book."

The list of books went on and on, each title getting darker and weirder. Even Jack preferred the girly magazines to these.

_Practical Voodoo._

_Spells of Gruesome Deaths_

_Poetry of the Damned._

_101 Vampires of the World._

_A History of Abnormal Abnormalities_

None of these were that helpful for Jack, some even gave him the jitters. He kept skimming through pages, muttering charms and ditties before throwing the book aside with the others. The room was already a mess, a little more couldn't hurt. There were five books left on the shelf, less than a fifth of what was in there originally. He took one off, about to throw it away when he recognised the cover.

It was a diary.

It was **his** diary.

He flicked through the yellowed pages, reading carefully what he had written down. It's strange, all the things he said before the townspeople turned on him – before he had his head replaced with a pumpkin – he could see now why they turned on him. He went into details about the expression on people's faces when they discovered a frog in their soup or a mouse in their trousers, he could see how irritating it was for them.

And yet even now, he held no regret.

He had loved what he had done, and he enjoyed seeing the harm he had caused upon the townsfolk. Sure, it had cost him his life and his head, but he still got giggles whenever he thought back to one of his pranks.

And suddenly, the pages went blank.

He had given up on his diary when he became immortal, for he realised that he couldn't write down each and every day he lived if he was going to live forever. If he did, he'd be needing a few more diaries. Why it was in her bookshelf he didn't know, but he was sure that she hadn't read it yet. Otherwise she would've recognised him.

And over the shoulder the little book went.

Jack pulled out the second book, inspected the cover, and threw it onto the pile. The whole bookshelf was close to empty now. Another book went flying, along with the sequel of the book, and left one lonely book in the case.

_Beating Death and Other Facts about the Afterlife._

"Been there, done that..." Jack said, about to toss the book away. But then it occurred to him... if he managed to break whatever spell was trapping him in the house, then Grim would be on his trail and back into Hell he would go.

Not good.

But if he could beat Grim _again_... then maybe the old sack of bones could get off his back.

He opened the book, flipping through pages less quickly than he did with the others. Then he found the page that makes this story worth-while. He read through the spell, slowly and carefully, a smile playing on his face.

"Shame, but oh well. Everything comes with a price." He closed the book and slid back down the stairs, landing on two feet, writing down the needed supplies on a slip of paper. "Jane is going to be doing a few more shopping trips for me..."

"Hey, can I get a sandwich loaf please?" Jane called over the counter to the bakers. The kind woman in overalls nodded, walking over to a rack of all sorts of bread as Jane sucked on her smoothie. She was standing there patiently, listening to her iPod and puzzling over the past few hours. She was weighed down with plastic bags, one of those many bags carrying Jack's necessaries. It had taken her ages to find a joke-shop in the mall, but she ended up finding one in the end.

"Wowzers, kid!" the shop attendant had said in a stupid high-pitch voice. "You must be one of the funny Goths!"

Jane didn't respond, just flipped him the finger as she walked out the door with a bagful of novelties. After that, she went to the Ding-Dong Grocery store, using up all the last dollars she had on puddings and a smoothie.

"Hmm..." Jane said aloud, thinking to herself. "I wonder if Jack likes pudding..." The woman behind the counter beamed, handing over the loaf of bread and wished Jane a nice day as she handed over the payment. Just as she walked along her way, seeing her little house-on-a-hill just in the distance, Jane noticed something in the air. The smell of soap, peanuts, mint... and cinnamon? She turned around in a circle, letting out a yelp when she saw a wrinkled face in front of her.

"Hello..." said the old woman. "Did I frighten you?" She was rather hunched over, about Jane's height, and wearing a loose black singlet. She was rather thin, nothing like the chubby New-Yorker Jane saw every Christmas, and wore a long grey skirt. Her long silver hair was tied in an elegant pony-tail with loose tendrils falling on her cheeks. She was actually rather beautiful for such an old woman...

Jane cleared her throat and kept her mouth closed. "No, of course not."

"Well I'm sorry if I did..." the woman apologised. "I just thought you could use the company..." Jane stared at the old woman for a few seconds before turning around and continuing her journey. Though it was rude, it was the only way to shake off an old bat like her. But boy was she persistent.

"It's just that I can feel something... _dark_..." the woman said in a hoarse whisper. Jane sighed and turned around, frustrated and not wanting the puddings to melt.

"Look, just because I'm Goth doesn't mean that I'm instantly dark," she snapped. "I'm going home."

"That's where the darkness lies!" the woman shrieked. Jane stopped in her tracks and turned around, growing scared. "In that house... it's _him_... he'll hurt you, my dear. He'll hurt you!"

"Leave me alone!" Jane yelled. She turned on her heel and kept walking, faster and faster in each step. The woman kept up easily, despite her health and age, and pushed her way in front of Jane. "Please, just get out of my way!"

"Listen carefully Jane Simmons," the hag whispered. Jane's eyes lit up at the sound of her name. "You have been touched by selfishness and greed... someone is going to hurt you!"

Jane stared at the woman, wide-eyed with both fear and confusion. "How do you know my name?"

The woman didn't answer, instead handed over a small business card. A red rectangle with a ying-yang sign in the middle, and in bold italics were the words '_Hidden Spirit Spell-house'_. Jane inspected the card, storing the address into her memory. "Why do I need this?" she asked, looking back up at the old woman.

But she was gone... vanished entirely.

Jane blinked, looking around to try and find her, but saw no signs of the hag. "That... was weird..." she muttered, continuing on her walk at last. But her steps slowly came to a stop when she saw her house in full view again. "Jack..."

Was that who she was talking about? She still didn't trust him entirely... and that run-in made things worse. This was one strange morning for her... she cranked up her iPod and kept walking. Jack wouldn't hurt her. If he wanted to, he would've done it earlier.

Besides, that woman might not have been talking about Jack.

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**CrazyA: **Short, I know. BUT I DON'T CARE!! It's just a filler chapter anyway. Reviews, please!!!


	6. It Hurts

**CrazyA: **Hi Jack!

**Jack: **yay! Two chapters in one week! That's more than Joker gets... by heaps....

**Joker: **HEY! He's right for once!!!

**CrazyA: **Guys, please settle down and let me do the damn chapter!

**Joker and Jack (after much argument): **Fine...

**CrazyA: **YAY! Read and review, guys!

**

* * *

6. It Hurts  
**_**'So tell me how to act Dad, what to say Dad, tell me why?...Dad I hate you, go and die!'-** __Let the Monster Rise, Repo! The Genetic Opera_

Jane unlocked the door, a plastic bag in her mouth as she juggled with shopping, and kicked it open with her only free limb. She slammed it behind her and looked around the house, for any signs of Jack. No orange pumpkin and mad laughter in sight or ear-shot... She dumped the bags of shopping on the kitchen bench, taking up to her bedroom the bag of goodies from the joke-store. "Jack?!" she called out. "I bought all the things you wanted!"

Jack's head turned when he heard Jane calling out for him. "Shoot... earlier than I thought..." He hid the gothic spell-book away in the shelf and started walking down the stairs. "Hi there, kid."

"Hey," she replied casually, walking past him. She spilt the contents out on the floor, Jack's eyes glowing brighter at the sight of the treasures. "Why these are so important for you, I'll never know..." she said as he got to his knees and inspected the colourful toys.

"It stops me from being such a sour-puss like you and your Dad," he replied, not bothering to look over his shoulder. He picked up a rubber chicken, stretching it out and stroking the texture. "Good quality stuff here... where'd you buy these?"

"This place in the mall..." Jane answered, crouching beside him. "The staff there were so annoying..."

"Wait, did you go to _'Wacky's World of Wonder'_?" Jack asked. Jane nodded, rolling her eyes. "I hate the staff there, too. Every Halloween they pissed me off by making fun of my head."

"They kept giving me this weird look..." Jane continued. "No real surprise there, I stuck out like a sore thumb."

"Ditto," Jack said with a bit of a smile. Turns out he wasn't the only freak that went shopping there. "At least they've got good quality stock there."

Jane shrugged; she wasn't that into joke stores and couldn't care less. So instead she just searched through the pile with Jack, not recognising half the things in there. Whoopee cushions she could understand, but the other junk was... well, junk. What could a person use a rubber chicken for?

"Hey, what's this?" she asked, holding up a set of dentures. Jack sighed and snatched them off her, winding up the handle on the side.

"I'm disappointed in you, Jane..." he said over the top of the whirring handle. "I can't believe you don't know the famous chattering teeth..." He let go of the handle and threw the teeth to Jane, who yelped in surprise as they squirmed around in her lap. Jack laughed as she picked the cheap piece of plastic and gears by the handle, watching it rotate around in the air until it came to a stop. Though she was pissed off at Jack, she couldn't help smiling about it.

"Oh I love these!" she said, picking up a set of glasses with a fake plastic nose attached in the middle. Just as he looked up to see what she had, Jack felt her push the glasses onto Jack's face. She laughed at his new expression, ignoring the frown on his face. She considered it as her payback for throwing a set of chattering teeth at her.

Jack's frown turned to a smile and he took off the glasses, putting them on her face instead. Jane kept them on as she searched through the loot for anything else. "I hope you weren't too bored up here by yourself," she said as she searched.

"Not at all," Jack replied. "In fact, I found something incredibly useful..."

Jane looked up and looked Jack in the eye. Somehow she knew that this wasn't going to be good..."What did you find?"

"Oh nothing..." Jack said slyly. "Just something to help get me out of this house once and for all." He fished around in his pocket, pulling out a scrap piece of paper. On it was written every step to the spell, minus the one Jack knew Jane would be against, and a list of ingredients they needed. He handed it over and watched as Jane read it all carefully.

"A Spell to Escape the Control of Death," she muttered aloud. The title alone sounded dangerous to her. "The heart of a shark... fur from a lion's mane... three tarantula's legs and a spinal cord... two spoonfuls of vinegar and a teaspoon of honey... plus another five minutes under the full moon..."

"Sounds easy..." Jack said sarcastically. "I just need you to get the ingredients, since I'm unable to step outside."

"First of all, where the heck am I going to get all this?" asked the panicked Jane. "Second, this has to be one of the most dangerous-sounding things I've seen in a looong time... and thirdzly, I'm not going to help you with this."

"I had a feeling you would say that..." Jack muttered. "So I'm going to put it like this... the sooner we get this spell done, the sooner I can leave my- I mean, _your _house... you can get your life back to normal and not have to worry about me any longer."

Jane stayed quiet, thinking it over. It actually looked quite comical since she was still in the glasses, but the room was deadly serious. She thought it over for what Jack felt like years before nodding her head slightly. "As long as you promise not to get me into anything serious...I'll do it."

Jack smiled at her, showing all his teeth, and let out a chuckle. "Thanks, doll-face. I thought it would take a lot more effort to convince you into doing this with me."

"Do you promise, Jack?" Jane pushed. Jack paused for a second, thinking the whole idea over. He could've told her the truth. He could've told her exactly what he was planning to do. But he didn't.

"I promise."

"Good..." Jane said quietly. She stood up and started making her way towards the stairs, throwing the glasses to the side. "I'm going to get myself some pudding. That smoothie on the way here didn't quite fill me up... want one?"

"...sure..." Jack said, in a daze as he realised just how awesome this might actually turn out to be... Jane ran down the stairs as he slid past her on the railing. They landed in unison, on same feet and everything, and walked over to the kitchen. Strange how two people who only knew each other for a day were already connected so strongly.

Jane rummaged through a shopping bag before pulling out two packets of chocolate pudding, grabbed two spoons from the drawer below her, and slid one of each to Jack. He was nearly close to tears... something as simple as pudding... from the Ding-Dong grocery store...

"Hey, are you alright?" Jane asked. Jack looked up from the foil-lid top and blinked at Jane, who was standing there with staring eyes and the metal spoon in her mouth. Jack nodded and ripped of the foil, inhaling the rich smell of sugary chocolate mouse.

"About the ingredients..." Jane said after swallowing a mouthful. "Do you have any idea where we can get all this stuff?"

"Well Endsville is one of the most paranormal-loving places in America, I'm sure that there's at least one shop around here that would sell this kind of stuff," Jack answered, leaning his elbows on the kitchen counter and spinning the spoon around between his fingers.

"Problem with that: neither of us have any clue where that shop could...be..." Jane slowly drifted away as she rummaged around in her pocket for the house keys, finding the tiny card as well. She pulled it out and inspected it again. _'Hidden Spirit Spell-House.'_

Jack leaned over further across the table, reading the tiny lettering upside-down. He and Jane looked up at each other, the same smile on their faces and the same idea in their heads. "The next time my parents go out-"

"-you go shopping for the loot," Jack finished. "But just wondering... where did you get that?"

"This mad cow gave it to me at the mall," Jane answered. "She might be the owner... she seemed like the type of person to run a shop like that."

"Why, what did she say?" Jack asked, both in curiosity and caution. She might've known about the spell. There are a lot of weirdos out in Endsville, some of them with slight psychic abilities. Jane went quiet, thinking the words over in her head before looking up at Jack.

"Someone's going to hurt me..."

"Jane? Are you in there?" called a voice outside the front door. Jane nearly dropped her pudding. A key rattled its way into the lock, jiggling and jumping as her mother tried to unlock it.

"My parents!" she hissed. Jack dropped the desert and bolted, as silently as he could on his footsteps. "Hide! Now!"

"Jane, is that you?" her dad called. "Is someone there?"

Jane didn't answer, just shooed Jack underneath the stairs. He hid in the shadows, even snuffing out the candle so that his eyes couldn't be seen. Jane smiled at him and went back to the kitchen, acting perfectly natural as her parents came in and pretending that she had been unpacking the groceries.

"Hello, Jane!" cooed her mother. She smiled at the sight of the grocery bags, asking in a sugar-coated voice to Jane "Did you go shopping?"

Jane just nodded.

Her father walked in behind his wife, hanging up his coat on a peg near the door. "Jane, don't pretend that you're mute..." he growled. "I heard you talking to someone before we came inside... were you on the phone?"

"Just myself..." Jane muttered, practically inaudible.

"Freaky kid..." he muttered underneath his breath. Jane still heard, but she just continued doing the chore. Dad gave her a glare before walking off to the kitchen, seeing what Jane was unpacking. Vegetables, fruit, extra bread and milk... he pulled out one of the many packets of pudding, glaring at Jane.

"What is this?" he asked. Jane blinked and shrugged her shoulders, not seeing a reason why he should get all psycho about it. "Why the heck did you buy this?" Another shrug. "Answer me, Jane..."

"I was hungry and they were on sale..." she finally answered in a lie. Her dad practically threw the deserts in the fridge.

"So you bought thirty of them?" he asked, almost laughing. "If you didn't have such a high metabolism then you'd probably be a fat slob of a daughter..."

"Steven, don't talk to her that way..." her mother cut in. "So what if she was just hungry? Don't take out your anger on your only daughter."

Jack watched on from underneath the stairs, wondering if this really was what she was forced to call her life. Even when he was on the other side of the portal, he questioned what she felt inside. But then it was behind a mist of white haze, not really accepted into the mind. But now, watching it all before him like a movie, he could see and feel just how bad this was for Jane.

Even when he was a kid, he never got treated the same way by his father. Every time he pulled a prank on him, his dad would just laugh it off. In fact, he often helped Jack out with some failed attempts of pranks. And whenever he got mad, it was just a nick around the head and that was it. No insults, no bullying, just a simple swipe and that was it.

Whatever Jane got was just brutal.

"Sometimes I wonder if she _is _my daughter..." Dad growled. He had been rejected again today, from each of the five places that he had gone out to for work requests. He needed to vent, he needed to get rid of his stress. And Jane was his favourite punching bag when the time called for it.

"I was just hungry..." Jane muttered. It was the most she had talked to her father in months. "I don't see why you should get upset about it..."

"Don't act so stuck-up, Jane..." he growled. Jane's fists tightened, but she kept everything she wanted to say inside her heart. She could take it... whatever he brought out was nothing new... and at least he would be paying attention to her...

"Look at me, Jane!" Dad growled in her face. Jane kept her head down, her jaw trembling as she tried to stand her ground. "You seriously think that you can just waste our money on stupid _snacks_?!?"

"Steven, please-"

"Stay out of this, Gwen!" he yelled across the room. "She needs to be taught a lesson!" Mom just stood silently, tears running down her spray-tanned face. She knew not to get in her husband's way... that would only make things worse...

His fiery eyes looked from his crying wife to the counter-top, where he saw the two empty packets of the chocolate delight. "You eat two packets a day?!? What the hell is wrong with you?!" He threw them at the wall, the plastic clattering to the ground. Jane flinched slightly, picking the rubbish up and in a crouched position on the floor, just waiting for it all to be over.

"Let me get this through you thick skull," her father growled. "You won't be wasting our tiny, microscopic fortune on this bull-crap that just goes straight to you ass... got it?"

Jane stayed silent, staring into the bin.

"Got it, Jane?!?"

She slowly lifted her head, looking him in the eye, but kept her mouth shut.

What Jack saw next scared him, and made him feel sorry for Jane even more. No girl, or boy, or _anything, _should have got the same treatment as her.

Steven, this tall and menacing monster, bent down and slapped his only child, a tiny girl of only sixteen, right across the cheek. A burning handprint stayed there, and innocent tears trickled down Jane's red cheek.


	7. Good Thinking

**CrazyA: **Hey you guys! Back with another chapter!

**Jack: **That's right! And this one is, by direct Jess-quotes, is 'totally fluffed-up'

**CrazyA: **HOORAY! Read and review!

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**7. Good Thinking  
**_**'As I burn another page, as I look the other way, I still try to find my place in the diary of Jane'**- __Diary of Jane, _Breaking Benjamin

Jane fell backward, completely blown away by the hit. It was more shock than anything else that made her cry. Never had her dad hit her before. And over something so little as this...

"Jane..." her father started, his eyes softening a little. Jane just got up, put the trash in the bin with a shaking hand, and slowly walked upstairs. Jack heard her steps creak as she made her way, and her quiet sobs echoed in the empty silence that filled the house.

"Steven," her mother said. "What have you done?"

"I was trying to teach the runt a little lesson!" he fumed.

"So you punched her in the face?!?"

"It was a slap, Gwen!"

"It might as well have been a punch!" she cried, her face turning red. "Can't you see how badly it's affecting her? She's going through a rough time now, and we're not helping her if we get fussed about something as little as groceries!!"

Jack just watched on, unable to move from this awkward situation. As they fought and fought, getting louder and louder, he sighed and slowly crawled out from his dark hiding-spot, quickly chasing Jane up the stairs without being seen.

She was in a tight little ball, leaning against the far side of the room. Her skull-candy headphones were clamped to her ears, and Jack could listen to her playlist even from across the room. Her eyes were tightly shut, and she didn't even know that Jack was standing right in front of her.

"Please stop..." she whispered over and over again. "Please stop, please stop..."

Jack watched her, not sure what he should do. He could tell her to get over it, quit her whining, and move on. He could spin a wheel of 'it's okay, don't cry, you'll be fine.' But when it came to it, he only did one thing...

...he sat beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and pulling her close.

Jane blinked, shocked at the act, but didn't struggle. She stopped whispering her chant, and her breathing slowed down to a normal pace. The fast, hot tears that exploded in her eyes dried up, and she slowly closed her eyes... peace at last.

"Thanks..." she whispered in a hoarse voice. That crying really took it out of her. She rubbed her eyes stubbornly, trying to seem stronger than she actually felt.

"It's okay," Jack said quietly. "You don't have to hide any tears when it comes to something as twisted as this... you must be terrified."

Jane shrugged her shoulders, her knees pulling in tighter and tighter. "Not terrified... more angry than anything else..."

"Jane my girl, if you're not scared of that then you must be fearless..." he said, smiling widely at her. She smiled back, resting her chin between her knees. "What _are_ you scared of then?"

"Don't laugh, because I know it sounds stupid..." she warned, chuckling slightly. "... Dying alone..."

Jack blinked. It seemed so strange for such a young girl to be worried about never being loved. She had her whole life ahead of her, and yet she was worried about that. But then again... that spell of his might have an effect.

"What about you?" she suddenly asked. "What are _you_ afraid of?"

Jack blinked and looked away, his arm retreating as he curled up his own legs and copied her position. "None of your beeswax..." he muttered.

Jane looked away, both hurt and disappointed, and looked out the window instead. The white wonderland lay beneath her, making her feel slightly more at peace. The angry, loud-as-hell song she was listening to just became white noise to her as she let out a wistful sigh. Jack heard the sigh, mistaking it as one of disappointment. "Fine... I'm scared of the knight that should've killed me off... happy?"

Jane looked back over to him. "Why didn't you want to tell me? It isn't embarrassing or anything if that was what you were worried about."

Jack shrugged. "I'd just rather not think about it, that's all."

"Good point..." Jane said quietly. She wanted to ask more questions, but was too scared to. She didn't want to be shunned out again by him. Plus, it might've brought up some bad memories. So instead, she looked him up and down and asked as politely as she could... "Did you want to have a shower?"

"Say what?"

"What," Jane said with a smile. Jack smiled back, chuckling with her at her small but funny joke. "But seriously, you might be wanting one after ages and ages going without."

"Good point," Jack said, still getting over his chuckles. "But one problem, how are you going to sneak me to the bathroom?"

Jane thought it over for a minute before staring at where a neck should've been on Jack's body. "Is your head removable?"

Jane crept carefully down the stairs, Jack's headless body taking exact footsteps behind her. If someone were looking at her from the front, then all they would see was just Jane carefully making her way down the stairs with her unusually-heavy-looking toiletries bag.

"Jane, you're probably one of the smartest teenage girls I've met in a long time..." said her black-laced bag.

"And soon I'll be one of the most punished girls you've ever met if you don't keep quiet..." Jane hissed, lightly swatting the pumpkin hidden inside.

"I can't help talking if there's a can of deodorant shoved up my ass."

Jane paused in her steps, wondering how the heck that was possible if he was just a talking pumpkin, before shrugging and continuing the path. She reached the bottom of the stairs and quickly scooted away from the kitchen where her parents were still fighting about what her father had done and to the bathroom.

Once Jack's body quickly tip-toed into the tiled room, Jane closed and locked the door silently. She opened up the bag and pulled out Jack's head, setting it down beside the sink while and leaning back casually on the counter-top.

"We're going to have to be quick about this," Jane said in a whisper. She walked over to the shower-taps, the headless body moving out of her way as she went past it. With a few grunts and finger-strains, she turned on the taps and smiled at the sound of water hitting the floor of a bath.

"At least we can talk a little louder now," she said with a smile, facing Jack's head. "But it's going to be hard to convince my parents there's only one person in here if I have an hour-long shower. So..." she looked down at a watch on her wrist, setting a timer for ten minutes. "This... should... help."

Jane just stared at her blankly before opening his mouth to make a sarcastic comment. "This isn't mission impossible, you know."

"Well when a pumpkin-headed stranger suddenly explodes into your life, you would do the same thing," Jane answered back. She turned to his body, which was just standing there with nothing better to do. "Now get undressed already, you're wasting time."

She turned around and faced her back to his body, looking instead at the pumpkin sitting on her bathroom sink. Jack smirked as a painful blush spread across Jane's face at the sound of a belt being unbuckled. She glared at him and faced the towel-rack, trying to avoid him entirely. She folded her arms across her chest, waiting for the sound of the curtains to be drawn closed so that she could turn around again.

Jack whistled his favourite tune as he stripped off, throwing his clothes in the corner of the room. It was Jane's decision for him to do this, so he was going to make it last. That way, when she snapped at him she would be the one to take the blame.

And he loved it when that happened.

He stepped in the bathtub and pulled the curtain to a close, Jane turning around at last. All she could see (if she wanted to watch him shower, that is) was a black, headless silhouette behind the plastic yellow flowers of the curtain. She turned to the pumpkin and studied him, coming up close to him and looking at him all over.

"What are you doing?" Jack asked, getting more irritated by the second.

"Don't you need to clean up, too?" Jane asked. "Don't you grow mould or anything?"

"Meh, I'm alright."

"What about your teeth? If you want to give them a once-over then I'm sure I can get a spare toothbrush from somewhere..."

"Kid, I'm fine," Jack growled. If he wasn't busy in the shower, he would've been strangling her by now. But then he saw the bruise slowly developing on her cheek and shook the thought from his mind. She had been through enough already.

But Jane was already rummaging through cupboards, finding the one thing she knew he needed. "I told you, I don't need a stupid toothbrush!" Jack growled again. Jane shook her head and pulled out a tiny red box, opening it up to reveal a match.

"I gotta say it Jack," she said as she tried striking it. "I like you better when you're lit up." The head of the match turned to black, surrounded by the flickering orange warmth, and she carefully walked back over to Jack. "Open wide, okay?"

He did, stretching his mouth as far as he could until she could fit nearly her entire hand in there. Jane was surprised how big it was, even though he had been giving the same Cheshire-cat grin ever since they met to show off that size.

She lit the wick and pulled out, shaking the match until the ambers faded and the flame died out. Jack's eyes flickered back into life, and he gave her another smile. She smiled back and retreated back to the cupboard, leaving the matches out on the sink-top.

"Question: Why do you have a set of matches in there?" Jack asked. Jane pulled out several candles, lining them up in a row along the sink-top.

"The same reason why I have these," she said as she pulled out candle after candle.

"In case a devilishly charming pumpkin came knocking upon your bathroom door?" Jack asked, raising a sly eyebrow.

Jane chuckled and shook her head. "Just in case there's a blackout or something... plus, candles can be very soothing after a rough night." She paused for a minute, thinking what she just said over in her mind. "Hey, do you mind if I-"

"Go ahead," Jack answered. Jane smiled and started lighting more candles, turning off the light afterwards, just as the ten-minute timer went off on her wrist. She quickly picked up a towel and threw it through the curtains, Jack's blind hands catching it easily. The water still running in the background, he wrapped it around his waist and stepped out.

"You're in," Jack said. Jane smiled and turned around, facing the bathtub, and got ready for her strip. Since Jack didn't have any pyjamas or any other clothes to wear, he just pulled the same outfit back on. He carefully placed his head back on his shoulders and started doing up the buttons of his shirt. But as he did up the button on his collar, he got a glimpse in the mirror of a side-on Jane unbuttoning her dress.

She was... curvy.

The reflection turned around and blinked at Jack, her bra nearly falling off her chest and her dress around her ankles. "No peeking, naughty pumpkin!" she cooed, giggling madly. Jack yelped in surprise, still staring at the reflection of Jane. Her pale body glowed in the candle-light, and her bare skin revealed her close-to-flat stomach.

"Hey!" she yelled, fading Jack's imagination-bubble away. "Didn't you hear me?!? Quit perving!"

Jack yelped again and turned around, not getting the image out of his mind. It was kinda creepy seeing her like that... being 'flirty'. It just didn't match up right. Jane, blushing madly, quickly got rid of everything else and hopped in the shower.

An awkward silence filled the air, only to be broken occasionally by Jack's whistling. He was looking away from the shower, but for one minute he couldn't help himself. He looked over to the shower, seeing her silhouette in a perfect curvaceous line. His whistling died down as he lost focus on it, more and more amazed that one tiny teenager could hit puberty so fast.

Special delivery from the boob-fairy.

"You better not be looking when I get out of here," Jane said as she struggled to turn off the taps. With a strain, they finally turned to a close and she reached around the curtains for a towel. After wrapping it tightly around her chest, cutting the fabric way above her knees, she stepped out.

Luckily, Jack had enough sense to pretend that he hadn't been watching her. He looked away from the sink and to Jane, wide-eyed and pretending it was the first time she had revealed that much skin. The bruise on her cheek didn't distract him from everything else about her, especially the tight dancer's legs that showed off underneath the white material of the towel.

"Can you turn around again?" she asked. Her brown eyes were glowing in the candle-light, and the water droplets dripping off her skin were like fairy-lights. As much as he hated to admit it... Jack thought Jane was... well... beautiful. He nodded and turned around, listening to the sound of her hands rummaging through the toiletries bag, pulling out her pyjamas.

Making sure he was fully turned around with no mirror in sight, Jane pulled on her PJs faster than ever before and gave a quick spray of deodorant. She walked past Jack and to the door as he finished blowing out the last candle, leaving the only light in the room as himself. Jane looked around the corner, seeing that her parents were _still _fighting. They didn't even notice that their only child had gotten out of the shower.

"Hey, don't I need to be in there?" Jack asked, pointing at the toiletries bag in her hand.

"They won't notice us..." Jane muttered. "Even if we had a million and two cymbals crashing our way through the house, they wouldn't even blink."

Jack stared at Jane for a minute, a smirk on his face. "A million and two?"

"It's my favourite number," Jane replied with a shy smile. She walked out naturally, but still quickly in case she wasn't right. Jack followed closely, relaxing once they were out of ear-shot and half-way up the stairs.

When they reached the top, the first thing they saw was the lonely king-sized single. And then came the other problem...

"So... who's sleeping where?" Jane asked, turning to him for the answer.

"Well obviously I get the bed. Seeing as I've owned it for hundreds of years until you showed up," Jack answered.

"Hell no! It's my bed!" Jane cried. "I'm not giving it up! Besides... it's comfy..."

"Exactly! So I'm gonna sleep in it!"

"No, _I _am!"

"_I _am!"

"_I _am!!"

"I call dibs!"

"Real mature, Mr Potato-head!"

"It's a pumpkin!"

"Whatever, same difference," she shrugged off, folding her arms and turning away from him. In their angry silence, a light bulb 'pinged' into Jane's mind. She tried pushing the bulb away, but it kept pushing back until she let out a sigh and gave in.

"Jack, get in the bed..."

"I'm glad to see you're finally seeing reason..." he said, smirking with absolute smugness.

But Jane shook her head, "You didn't let me finish... you have to get in backwards." Jack blinked and started walking backwards to the patchwork-covered mattress. Jane laughed, shaking her head as she walked past him and to the bed. "Get in with your head at the foot of the bed... so that your feet are at the head..."

"You have no idea how weird that sounds," Jack commented, walking normally now.

"Actually, I've got a pretty good idea..." Jane replied. She watched as he unpicked the sheets at the end of the bed, took off his shoes, and folded the blankets over the top of him. Jane sighed and threw him the pillow, knowing that it would be uncomfortable to sleep with his head digging into the wooden panels.

"Thanks," he replied, resting his head on it. "But just wondering... why do I have to sleep like this?"

Jane sighed and pulled back the covers at the top of the bed. "So that I've got room to sleep, too... now scooch over, I've got barely anything here."

"Wait a minute, we're sleeping together?!" Jack exclaimed.

"Don't be such a sook," Jane replied, yawning halfway through. "Today's been exhausting and I _really _want to get some sleep." She put her head down on the mattress, closing her eyes.

"I guess you're right..." Jack said stubbornly. "But I still reckon that I should've got the bed to myself... goodnight."

"Goodnight..."


	8. Bonding

**CrazyA: **Hey guys, sorry for the wait! I've just had a whole other heap of stories to write (I've got abotu 5 going at once) as well as school-work. Damn. But don't worry, I'm gonna keep writing no matter what! _*heroic pose*_ PLEASE REVIEW!!

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**8. Bonding  
**_**'Forget the fear it's just a crush...'-** __Unbreakable, _Fireflight

Morning's rays flooded the room and stirred Jane from her sleep. She opened her eyes and let out a yawn. She blinked when she saw the extra person in her bed, but as the memories of yesterday came back she let out a smile.

"I thought it was all a dream..." she whispered.

She slowly sat up, careful not to wake up Jack, and got out of bed, stretching her arms out and embracing the day with a disappointed frown on her face. She was having a good dream, and hated being disturbed when she was in a good spot.

She looked over to Jack, smiling at the face he made when he was asleep. It was a calm smile, and he let out the occasional chuckle. He must've been having good dreams too. Sometimes she woke up for a few seconds during the night, hearing his laughter. She never knew it was possible for a person to laugh himself to sleep…

She walked over to the curtains, sliding the tattered material across the glass. Just because she had gotten up early didn't mean that he had to as well. She picked her iPod off the bedside table and walked down the stairs, wanting to get an early breakfast in before her parents woke up.

Jane pulled out a box of cereal, pouring herself a bowl the size of a small African nation. Just as she was taking the first few mouthfuls, she saw the shadow of a figure walking down the hallway. She sat up, tempted to call out, but worried if she got the wrong person.

If she called her dad 'Jack', then there might be a bit of a side-problem.

But when she saw her mother emerge from the hall, dressed in a pink-laced dressing gown that she had once made a long, long time ago. Jane knew that was a bad sign. She only wore it if she needed comforting.

And sure enough, the black ring around her eye told the whole story.

"Mom... are you okay?" Jane asked, wide-eyed at what her father had done.

"Y-yeah... I'm fine..." she whispered, as if she was close to death. "How are you going?" she asked, her eyes looking moist and shiny. Jane shrugged, looking down at her cereal. Mom walked up to her and gently placed a hand on her daughter's bruise, sighing at the sight of it. "What are we going to do?"

"Report him."

"Jane, we can't do that..." she muttered, picking sugary crunches from her daughter's breakfast. "You know what he'll be like when he gets back... it'll be worse than before. And besides, it won't help him find a job any sooner."

Jane shunned her mother, going silent and bitter again. She hated having to protect her abusing, alcoholic father just because she was made up of some scraps of his DNA. She took a slow mouthful, listening to her mother's shuffling footsteps as she walked over to the cupboards, pulling out some instant coffee.

She looked over to her daughter and sighed, a slight smile on her face. "You know, Jane... you've been talking a lot more than usual..." she commented. Jane looked up, a little surprised by the remark. "Ever since yesterday, you've seemed... I don't know... you just seem happier... even last night... you were happy when we came home from work-searching... Jane..." she said, smiling at her daughter. "...it's really good to see you like this."

Jane blinked again, a slight smile on her face. Her mother, as bugging as she could be sometimes, was one of the best people in the world. She always stood strong and yet was always forgiving. She knew more about Jane than anyone else... well, before Jack had come.

"Honey..." she continued. "When you went out for shopping... did you meet anyone? Maybe a boy?"

Jane pulled a face. "Nah, just me and a scary old lady."

"Oh... well, is there a boy in your life already?" she asked. "It's just that... a lot of girls I used to work with always seemed happiest with a guy and-"

"Mom, don't worry about it!" Jane said, giving a smile. "I don't know anybody around here whatsoever."

"That's what I'm worried about," she said, looking her daughter in the eye. "Why don't you go for another walk today? Meet up with some people? If we're going to be here for a while, then at least start making some friends before you go back to school. That way, you've got a head start."

Jane was rolling her inner eyes, but she just nodded and pretended that it was all amazing advice. But when she kept going on... and on... and on... Jane finally snapped with something to keep her quiet for a while.

"There is this _one _guy."

Her mother blinked, eyes wide. "Really? What's he like?"

This was the first time Mom had ever seemed like this. They never talked like this before. "Don't get too excited... he's just a friend, barely even that."

"So do you like him?"

"Yeah, he's a pretty cool guy. He's... different... from other guys... and I like different..."

"What's his name?"

"Jack O-" she started, suddenly realising how stupid it sounded. She pretended to have a coughing fit, choking on a piece of cereal. When she recovered, she smiled at Mom and continued. "Uh... Jack O'Bryan."

"What does he look like?" she asked, her eyes bright and enthusiastic. Much to Jane's surprise, she found herself enjoying this conversation. This completely normal mom-to-daughter conversation about a completely abnormal guy.

"He's... fairly tall... thin..." she said. "Golden eyes that just... glow... and an..._amazing_ smile..." Thank God that he wasn't listening in on her, otherwise Jane might've been blushing. "He's really cool... kinda good-looking... and... I feel _really _stupid saying this, since we barely know each other... but... he understands me..."

Mom smiled at her daughter, her moist eyes overflowing. Jane looked up from her cereal and at her mother's eye. She didn't notice the tears of joy, just the deep bruise that took the place of eyeliner. "Mom... why did you marry Dad?"

The tanned house-wife stared at her daughter, taken back by surprise. The kettle beeped, and she walked over to the red pot to start making her coffee. She couldn't look her daughter in the eye whenever she talked about her husband.

"As hard as it is to believe... I truly loved your father. He was a sweetheart. And a complete romantic...people said we were perfect together... I guess they were right at the time. But then, he became angrier and angrier as he aged. We were constantly fighting, and sometimes thought about a divorce. But every time we thought, he would win me over. Soon, I just became a doormat for him. Just another piece of furniture..."

She looked over to Jane at last. Her eyes were on the brink of tears and were as bright as crying stars. "Jane... my sweet little Jane..." she said, her voice breaking. She stared at the bruise that damaged both body and soul. "If you really like this boy... then spend as much time as you can with him... let him know _exactly_ how you feel about him..."

"Mum, it's fine..." Jane replied, doing her best to keep a smile. "Don't be too dramatic. I barely know the guy."

"No, Jane..." she said in a ghost of a voice. "I know you... you really do like him... I can tell."

They sat there, silent and bewitched by the sound of a brewing coffee pot. Jane stared at her mother's new scar, biting her lip before slowly getting the courage to talk about it. "Mom... if you need to cover it up... I've got makeup you can use..."

"Thanks honey..." she said quietly. She walked over to her daughter and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. "That would be great..."

Jane blinked at the touch, but then rested her head against her mother's side. She breathed in the smell of perfume and coffee that made up who she was, wondering why they hardly ever did this.

"Hey, Jane?"

"Yeah..."

"Promise me you won't tell your father... but I'm going for a job interview."

"What?" she said, breaking the hug and looking up at her wide-eyed. "That's great, Mom. But why don't we tell Dad?"

Her mother sighed, drinking down her coffee. "Well, you father believes that the man of the house should be the one responsible for earning money... he'd be terribly upset if he found out about this. It's just a small job as the local school's psychiatrist... but we really need some income until your father gets a job at last."

"Speaking of which, where is Daddy-dearest?" Jane said as sweetly and sarcastically as she could. Mom playfully swatted her daughter, trying not to laugh at the way she said his title.

"He's out, of course. Job-hunting as usual."

"Figured. What time will he be home?" Jane asked, plotting away in the back of her mind.

"I'd say around six... but I'll be home by five. So until then, you've got the whole day to yourself," she said positively. "I hope you don't mind us leaving you all by yourself... maybe you can catch up with Jack?"

"Sure, maybe..." Jane said casually, not giving anything else away. "You go get dressed."

Jack's eyes slowly opened to the sound of a closing door and shuffling feet. He sat up, stretching out his arms and looking around the room. Jane was already up from the looks of it, since there wasn't a lump of teenager sleeping next to him. He could smell something cooking... if it was bacon, then there was a definitely a reason to get up.

He slowly walked down the stairs, making sure the coast was clear, before skipping over to the kitchen. Sure enough, Jane was dancing around in the kitchen with a frying-pan of bacon in her hand and her iPod in her ears.

"Morning," Jack said with a smiled, sitting at the counter and watching her with interest.

She turned around and gave a smile back. "Morning," she replied. "I didn't know what you wanted for breakfast... so I figured a might be able to fry something up." She quickly dropped the curled slices of crispy delight on a plate that already had two fresh slices of bread. "I'm sorry if I didn't cook it the way you wanted..."

Jack shrugged, taking the plate off of her. "Meh, I don't care. As long as it's crispy bacon, that's enough for me."

Jane smiled, happy to know that she was doing the right thing. She picked up a new slice of bacon, dropping it in the frying pan and watching it sizzle, still dancing to the song that was playing.

The prankster smiled, it was good seeing her like this. After her terrifying father had slapped her, she seemed like an empty shell of a person. He still saw those wide, terrified eyes as she curled up in the corner of the room. But she seemed to have calmed down last night. Maybe a shower was all that she really needed...

_I will __**not **__picture her naked. I will __**not **__picture her naked..._

"I'm going to go down to that shop today, okay?" she said, munching on a piece of crisped bacon. She stared at him blankly, wondering what he was thinking, before waving her hand for some attention. "Hey, you alright?"

Jack's head snapped back up, looking her in the eyes once more. "Uh... yeah..."

Jane smiled at him before wiping the bacon grease away from around her mouth. "You know... sometimes you seem a little bit awkward around me..." she said, leaning her elbows on the table-top and looking him right in the eyes. Her words were rather ironic, because her own face was turning a little pink with blush. "So... I was wondering..."

Jack had a slight feeling where this might've been going, and he gave a smirk about the idea she was asking him about this. They only knew each other for one day, and yet she was asking him about this already. Just to irritate her, he scooched further on his elbows towards her. "Yes...?"

"Did you... ever... did you ever have a girlfriend?" she asked at last.

Jack laughed, causing her blush to deepen by the slightest shade. "Uh... I guess I've had one..."

Jane blinked. "Seriously?" Jack gave her a sarcastic glare, which brought a smile to Jane's face. "What? You never mention about your life before the reap, so... I don't know, I just assumed..."

"...that I was a lonely sap who lived in a creepy house on the hill?"

"Well... yes and no..."

"Well, she wasn't just a girlfriend... she was fiancé," he said... grimly. Jane blinked, sitting up straighter. She was _certainly _not expecting this. "An arranged marriage... until I broke it. I just... don't tell me that I'm a total douche-bag or anything like that, because I had my reasons... I... sort of dumped her..."

Jane shrugged. "You don't seem like the guy to settle down with kids or anything like that. I'm not that surprised-"

"-at the altar."

"...okay then, maybe you _are _a douche-bag." Jack laughed it off, but he was barely smiling. "But seriously, at the _altar_? I hope you had some damn good reasons..."

Jack merely bit into his toast, his expression grim, and yet calm and reasonable. "Colli was... in one word... a diva. She hated nearly everything and one little old Endsville, and yet was the town virgin. People respected her, loved her, and _wanted _her, even though she bullied and whined and... well, just overall Colli-ed.

So, of course, everyone pretended to be happy for the two of us when our engagement was announced. But I wasn't interested in marrying her, I just wanted to keep pranking and joking and being me. I knew that if I married her, it would all come to an end. So... I decided to leave her.

But, you know me, I had to leave her with my signature style. So, when the bride started panicking at the altar, I managed to shove that monkey-suit of mine onto the neighbour's pig and put him in my place!" he finished, shrieking with laughter. "It was one of my best pranks! Just thinking about it makes me tingle all over!!"

Jack expected Jane to be yelling at him, telling him how heartless he was and that he should get out of the house quick-smart. But no. She was laughing with him, resting her forehead on the cool of the table and banging her fist against the surface as she cracked into hysterics. She was the first person to laugh at that mastermind of a prank, and he was happy to see that it was true laughter, not forced like some people had attempted back when he was fully human.

"That's genius!!" she squealed, making bowing movements down to him, her ribcage killing her sides. "And I bet she deserved it too!!"

"You should've been there!! You would've been able to help me dress the pig!!" he yelled, slapping her on the shoulder.

She rubbed her stomach, trying to stop but with no such luck. "Oh my toaster..." she said, barely able to breathe. "I so wish I had your courage!! If I did, I would've sorted out those bitches back in New York!"

They laughed and laughed, until finally they managed to breathe once more. Jane wiped away the tears in her eyes as Jack managed to stand up straight, but their shoulders still shook and they couldn't quite look each other in the eye.

"I... I better go..." she finally got out, a wicked grin showing nearly every tooth. Jack wasn't the only one with a wide smile. She packed the dishes into the sink and started walking down the hall, Jack watching her go with his own Cheshire-smile.

"Why are you so eager to go?" he asked as she reached the stairs.

She smiled at him and started walking up, her steps a creak on the old wooden steps. "The sooner I get your stuff, the sooner you can leave," she replied as she walked out of sight.

She stopped in her tracks, thinking it over.

"...the sooner you'll leave..." she muttered to herself. The floorboards stopped squeaking as she stood perfectly still, thinking it over. She had only known Jack for one day, and ye here she was... feeling like her heart was going to scream out if she didn't tell someone.

She was going to miss him when he left. Jack had done so much for her. He had comforted her, talked to her, _understood _her. He did what she thought no one could, not even her own parents. Sure, she had to go out and do the shopping for him, but he provided so much and yet so little of the fun in her life.

She didn't want him to go. She wanted him to stay with her. She knew that she could always keep in touch, but that wasn't the same. It would never be. But she couldn't keep him hiding in the closet for too long. One day, he would be found out.

But until then... he was with her.

And that was all that really mattered.


	9. Close

**CrazyA: **URGH! Been so long since I updated, I know. But I've had a massive case of writer's block and heaps of other projects to do... pooey.

**NOS-4-A2: ***pulls CrazyA closer to him, smirks at Jack* She's _mine_ now, pumpkin...

**Jack: **HOW COULD YOU?!!?

**CrazyA: **I don't really know... it just sorta happened. Read and review!!! I hope this was worth the wait!

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**9. Close  
_'I sense there's something in the wind that seems like tragedy's at hand. And though I'd like to stand by him, can't shake this feeling that I have...' _**_– Sally's Song,_ Fiona Apple

Jack had to admit, the house was a lot more fun with Jane around.

After she had left for_ Hidden Spirit, _Jack was all alone again. And since he had found the spell already, he didn't have anything important to do. He guessed that he could set something up for Jane, like a pie-in-the-face catapult or something like that. But he remembered how violent Jane's dad was over some stupid pudding, and guessed that if he found any custard or frosting on the floor, Jane would be dead.

So pranks were off the list. That was a crying shame.

What else was there around the house?

He guessed that they might've had some books to read. But they were probably in the boxes that piled up in the living-room, and he (once again) worried about the 'rent's reaction if there were hundreds of books scattered everywhere. Besides, he wasn't that much of a reader.

He stared at the plasma-screen blankly, his eyes turning to the many remotes on the coffee table. He _was _a TV person, but Jane's dad, etc, etc. He let out a sigh and stared at the ceiling. "Is there anything I can actually _do _around here?" he asked the air above. There wasn't any reply, so he decided to ask Jane's ceiling instead.

Skipping up the steps, he looked around the room curiously. Same old same old. Wardrobe, bookshelf, and several gags scattered on the floor from yesterday afternoon. "At least Daddy-dearest didn't see _this _mess..." he muttered, kicking a rubber chicken in boredom. This was going to be one boring afternoon...

No TV.

No gags.

No nothing.

He sat on his/her bed and looked around the room for anything he might've missed. But no matter what angle he looked at, it was always the same. Just him and the air under neath the bed. He groaned in boredom and fell backward, hitting his head on the pillow-less mattress. "What can I do?"

_Well, what does Jane do? _said a voice inside his head.

"Listen to music, I guess..." he muttered aloud. "But she took her iPod."

_You don't need an iPod to listen to music. CDs are just as good._

"Nice try, but she doesn't have any CDs."

_Try under the bed._

"What?"

_The bed. Try under the bed._

"Fine, fine, geez…" he muttered, shaking his head and sitting up to try and get rid of the voice. "I didn't realise my own brain was such a nagger." He crouched down on the floor and looked underneath, smiling when he saw at least twenty plastic covers and a stereo. He pulled out the first few he could find, skipping through the titles. There were several Marylin Mansons and a few My Chems, but other than that the rest was pop and urban.

More proof that Jane was normal.

P!nk, Lady GaGa, Beyonce, Aqua... everything sugary and topping the charts. Lily Allen, Kelly Clarkson, Avril Lavigne, Justin Timberlake, Michael Jackson, Short Stack, Rhianna, Taylor Swift, the Veronicas, Evermore, Christina Aguliera, Pussycat Dolls, ABBA, Green Day, Grandma, Maroon 5-

-wait a minute, 'Grandma'?

Jack did a double-take and got to the last CD he had, a blank white CD with hand-written title. _Grandma's CD_, the writing said in a scribbled fashion. It must've been a burnt copy, Jack decided.

"But what does it have on it?" he thought aloud. He looked back underneath the bed and pulled out the stereo. It was rather dusty, with a thin layer coating the metal, and looked like a fairly old model (since it still had a tape player). "Only one way to find out..." he muttered.

He carefully put it in the disc, cleaning the inside of the stereo and the bottom of the CD. After figuring out how to work it, he sat back and listened. The music filled his mind, slowly and peacefully, and somehow reminded him of his old life. It wasn't anything at the top of the charts, and it wasn't anything about making out with corpses.

It was just music.

He lay across the bed, so that his head touched the floor and his feet hit the wall, and closed his eyes in peace. He'd have to ask Jane why it was labelled _Grandma's CD, _but for now he could relax.

Jack didn't really understand what it was about Jane, but he liked her. She was a fun girl, despite her confidence issues, not to mention that she was pretty good-looking. But that didn't have to do with anything. She was smart, well-natured, and most importantly... she had a good sense of humour...

"No, quit it," he scolded himself. "Don't get yourself attached. It'll just make things harder..."

*~*

Jane walked her way down the street, a slight skip to her step as she moved. In the past, she had never felt so good as she did now. Jack had really brought a shine to her life, and for that she would make sure that he was happy as well.

Even if that meant walking around in the dingy part of town.

"This shop better have the ingredients," she muttered. "Or else I might just have to kill that crazy old woman..." On her trip down here, she had been hooted at five times by several teenage boys and pushed by so many gangs that she didn't bother counting. She looked down at the card once more, reading the shop address for the hundredth time that day, and looked down the street to find the sign-post. _Robinson Avenue,_ it said. Now, to find number 13 B...

She turned to the right, blinking at the sudden sight of a bright red building amongst filthy squatter's apartments and Chinese take-away shops. _Spell-house_ certainly was a different place... In the shop window, which was lined with beaded black curtains, was a giant gold Buddha sitting amongst piles of tattered books and jars that contained several organs... human or otherwise, Jane couldn't tell. _Hidden Spirit Spell-house _was written in bold, curvy font at the very top of the store in black paint, and the front door was open to reveal a curtain of red, gold and black beads. It was as if India, China, and Arabia all came together for a tea-party.

She gulped and walked inside, thinking it best to get over and done with instead of standing outside and looking like a complete nutter. As Jane brushed through the curtains, jingling the beads as she did, she realised that she was one of the only people there. The other customer was a very tall figure in a long black cloak, but she couldn't make out his face since he was facing the bookshelf and away from her. And as for the old woman from yesterday... there was no sign of her anywhere. Part of Jane was thankful for that, but she still needed someone to help her find...

"The heart of a shark..." she muttered, reading off the list. "Perfect." She looked around the room, scanning for any sign of heart-in-a-can. "Where am I meant to find-"

"Second shelf on de left, bottom right-hand corner."

Jane blinked and turned around at the sound of the Jamaican accent. The cloaked figure still had his back to her, but was obviously paying attention to whatever she was mumbling to herself. "What?" she asked blankly.

"Shark hearts: second shelf on de left, bottom right-hand corner," he repeated, his face pressed inside his book.

Jane turned around, finding the pickled jar almost instantly. Ew, seriously gross... it was all fleshy... and squidgy... She picked it up in shaking hands, careful not to drop it, and looked at the label. "Wow... Great White," she read. She turned back to the stranger, smiling even though he couldn't see it. "Thanks," she said quietly so she didn't disturb his reading.

"Not a problem," he replied, turning a page and continuing his reading. "But I suggest dat you don't do whatever you were planning on doing with that thing. Dey're powerful magic."

"Oh..." she said blankly, looking down at the jar as if it would leap out and bite her.

"What else are you buying?" he asked, turning his head slightly as their conversation grew.

"Uh..." she said, quickly looking down at the list. "Fur from a lion's mane, three tarantula legs and a... spinal cord..." she said quietly. She watched the figure sigh in exhaustion, closing his book shut and putting it back on the shelf.

"Child, you can't go around trying to avoid death. It just ain't natural." Jane's eyes widened at once. He was a professional at freaking people out... as well as mind-reading and shelf-storage. Did he work here?

"It's not for me..." she said honestly. "My friend needs me to buy these. He can't leave the house because he's really sick and I need these to get him better."

The stranger nodded, taking it all in. "Of course..." he said, more to himself than to her. It sounded like he didn't believe her for a minute... or like he knew something that she didn't. "Is your name Jane?" he suddenly asked.

Jane was getting really tired of people figuring out her name, but it still scared her to the bone. "Yeah... do you know me?"

He kept silent, pulling out another book and beginning to read that one instead while giving her the cold-shoulder treatment. She shrugged her shoulders and moved across the disgusting jars, looking for a spinal cord. Just as she thought that no one was going to help her, the old woman from the previous day bopped her head through another set of curtains, her silver hair waving around wildly as she looked around the shop.

"Jane?" she hissed. "Are you here?" The teen stood up at once, still clutching the heart close to her chest. She received a smile from the ancient bat who came over and opened her arms widely. Jane was just about to hug her back when the woman slammed the bottom of her palm against the girl's forehead, her fingers digging into her hair.

Jane stood completely still, wondering what going on, as they planted themselves into the floorboards, unmoving and silent. "Um... what are you doing?" she asked in a whisper. She could never be sure about this person... she didn't even know her name.

"You've been hurt..." she said simply, her hand slowly hovering from Jane's forehead and to her cheek. Jane simply blinked, refusing to let her mother down... despite the fact the she needed to tell someone. But then the woman's wrinkled hand slowly hovered downwards, pausing over her heart. "...and you're still hurting... a boy?"

"Her friend," said the stranger from before.

Jane flushed and shook her head, swatting the woman's hand away defensively. "Can you help me find these ingredients?" she said, presenting the list to her in a desperate attempt for a distraction. She took the list in her delicate fingertips, revealing blood-red nails to the customer, and Jane could only watch as her eyes widened.

"My dear, what do you need these for?" she asked, her voice barely there.

"Her friend is sick," the cloaked figure explained once more. "And from the sounds of the spell she needs, he's very sick."

Jane nodded. "Not just my friend, my _boy_friend," she lied quickly. After the discussion with her mother that morning, she was willing to make up that lie in order to make it more depressing. "He's really close to dying, and the doctor said that I need to buy these things for his medicine."

The mysterious figure chuckled, amused by her web of woe, while the shop-keeper sighed and covered her astonished mouth with her hand. "That's awful..." she said quietly. "Of course, of course, come out to the back with me and we'll find some fresh cut for you..."

Jane smiled and pretended to wipe her eyes dry of tears. "Thanks, I'd really appreciate it..." she said, following her through the curtains and into the storage room. She felt a twinge of guilt for the woman, she never really liked having to lie to people, but she didn't want her freaking out about the dangers of magic... she was going to figure that out for herself.

After several minutes of rummaging through boxes, walking past shelves, and dusting off labels, they managed to find the right ingredients. Jane took one last look over the ingredients, ticking them all off in her mind and put the list back in her pocket. "Thanks a lot," Jane said, picking up the heavy box of jars, samples and bones in her hands and pushing her way past the beads. "I couldn't have found any of this without your help... how much do I owe you?"

"Nothing," said the woman. "Think of it as a gift." She took the girl's hand, meaning it as a comforting symbol... but her hand tightened around hers suddenly, and her eyes went dark.

Jane bit her lip and stared as the woman's mouth fell open and she stared past her eyes and into her mind. "I... I can see the dark," she said, her voice suddenly hoarse. "There's darkness in your future..."

Jane tried pulling away, but the grip she had was way too strong for her. "Your... your in danger. Horrible danger. You'll be hurt. Your heart torn in two and your body a broken vessel..."

"Get away from me!" she screamed, pulling harder until she let go at last. She turned and bolted, running as fast as she could back home while making sure that nothing fell from her box. But she wasn't running away from the old woman... she was running from the nagging thought inside the back of her mind that was telling her the one obvious point that she should've been listening to"

_Don't. Trust. Jack._

But she knew Jack. She could trust him, she was sure of it. He had taught her so much about her own self, and she had never felt more confident then she did now. She... she really liked him.

I put away the book I was reading back on the shelf, sighing in exhaustion as I re-read the spine: _Beating Death and Other Facts about the Afterlife_.I turned around, coming face-to-face with the owner of the store. Great, just who I had to see.

"Excuse me, but is your name Dorothy Withers?" I asked.

The old bat blinked and nodded her head slowly. "You've come for me, haven't you?" she asked.

I sighed and nodded, my scythe appearing in my hand. In one swift movement, I reaped her soul in a flash of the blade. She suddenly fell to the floor, clutching her chest in pain before her heart finally gave out on her. Dorothy's soul appeared beside me, a clear and wispy white figure of herself, as she stared down at her body on the floor. After a while, she looked from her body to the door, staring out of it wistfully. "How did you know that girl?"

I sighed and looked down at my list of reaps, watching as Dorothy's name faded from the paper and the one beneath hers moved upward. I spotted the name of Ms Simmons on the page, dimly glowing to show that she was next on schedule. "I don't... and dat's just de way I like it."


	10. MUST READ, VERY IMPORTANT

****

SOME GOOD AND SOME BAD NEWS

I'll put the bad news first. Bad news is, I've stopped writing 'Sacrifices Must Be Made.' It's over. I love all your reviews and the amount of readers I got, but I just can't write that fanfic anymore. I've lost interest and I've found it to be incredibly Mary-Sue.

Sorry guys...

...but I'm not finished yet!

The good news is, I've started work on the remake. The first two chapters can be found on my deviantART account and I'm going to post them here as a whole new story, too. The remake is called 'Oh, the Times We've Had.' It's a set before and during the Halloween special, with lots of flash-backs and a whole lot less 'Oh Noes my daddy's an abuser and alkoholeac oh no poor me boohooz.'

That was all bullshit, very well-written bullshit.

So please, check it out.

Right now.

GO!


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